TrueDestiny
by scythianslavegirl
Summary: A saucy, raw fantasy tale about how, at the conclusion of Season 3, Russell Edgington escapes from his concrete prison and returns to Bon Temps to take revenge on those who have wronged him and kidnap Sookie back to his mansion in Jackson.
1. Prologue

Prologue: Faerie World

SOOKIE SAT ON A STONE BENCH in the dreamy twin reality she had come to inhabit. She was thinking of nothing in particular, just watching the other faerie folk laugh and dance, when she noticed Claudine approaching. Claudine sat down next to Sookie, her normal cheerfulness subdued and quiet. She took one of Sookie's hands between her own, and said, "Sookie, I'm sorry to say that I have bad news. I have just returned from speaking with the Elders..." Her breath caught in her throat and she lowered her sad blue eyes, unable to continue.

"Yes?" Sookie questioned, on pins and needles, wanting her to continue. Claudine had mentioned that she might need to be brought before the Elders before her place in this hidden realm was assured. The uncharacteristic sadness in Claudine's voice unsettled Sookie. She was happy here and did not want anything to ruin it. Claudine met Sookie's eyes and forced the next words out. "Sookie, they have decided that you must return to your human life."

"What?" Sookie exclaimed, jumping to her feet, her eyes wide with horror. She paced back and forth in front of the stone bench, afraid that the ground might open up and swallow her if she stayed in one place. Claudine hung her head, clearly distressed by this sudden turn of events. "Why? Tell me why!" Sookie demanded in response to Claudine's silence.

Claudine's expressive, long lashed eyes shone with tears, but her voice was all calm serenity when she answered, "Sookie, you cannot stay here because they say that you have taken in too much vampire blood. The Elders fear that it will have a corruptive influence on you and, in time, on others. Please understand that no one knows exactly how these things work. One vampire has already tried to follow you here and they are afraid. Ultimately, they decided that the good of the many outweighs concern for the safety of just one."

Her words hung in the air as Sookie wrestled with them. She quit pacing and sat back down, suddenly feeling sick and woozy. Claudine placed her hand on Sookie's shoulder in a reassuring way, and Sookie tried to focus her thoughts on her surroundings. Every stone, tree, and rock glowed with a soft radiance; emanating a tangible sense of safety and security that soon would be only memory. Sookie grasped the stone bench, trying to center herself, focusing on how it emitted its own faint glow, humming quiet, unmoved and unmovable, completely exempt from all such tragedy.

Sookie groped inwardly for a coherent response. "I don't understand. I would never hurt anyone. Can't you talk to them again; make them understand?" She pleaded, her voice near to breaking. She could see the others in the distance, laughing, dancing, oblivious to her sudden crisis; and the cruel irony was not lost on her.

Claudine thought about telling her the whole truth then; how it might have been different if Sookie was full-faerie instead of, as one of the Elders had put it, a reckless, ill-starred half-breed who had unwittingly broken their principal law by getting involved with vampires. But she loved Sookie and could not bear to see her suffer more than necessary. "This is my fault, Sookie. Try not to blame them. The Elders remember when we tried to co-exist with vampires. It was our Great Folly and, if we had not hidden ourselves, there would be none of us left. I knew when I brought you here that it was possible that you would have to go back." Claudine shook her head and avoided Sookie's gaze as she continued, "That night when you pleaded for help at your grandmother's grave, I could not ignore your grief. I only wanted to protect you, if even just for a little while."

"But it's not safe for me there! You said so yourself. What will become of me?" Sookie stammered. The answer didn't really matter, regardless of her desire to pretend otherwise, deep down she knew that Claudine had handed her a death sentence. Suddenly, Claudine grabbed Sookie's shoulders in her small, strong hands and said, "Sookie, remember always that you are loved. You are one of us. Promise me that you will remember that… no matter what happens." Sookie avoided meeting Claudine's intense gaze, as if doing so would buy her more time to put off the inevitable. Instead, she let her eyes wander over her surroundings; trying to memorize every detail, gather every warm memory before it was all gone forever. "I promise," she whispered quietly, but it was a lie. A lie spoken for Claudine's benefit. In reality, she had never felt more bereft and abandoned, and she knew that is what would stick.

Tears welled up in Claudine's eyes and spilled down her rosy cheeks. But, to her credit, her calm composure never broke despite the ragged sobs that caught in her throat, making it hard for her to breathe. She pulled Sookie to her with surprising strength and held her close in a desperate, final embrace. Then without another word, Claudine released Sookie and smiled sadly. She turned and walked away to join the others, leaving Sookie alone. As her faerie kin faded from view, vanishing like so many ghosts into the ether, Sookie allowed her grief to overtake her. As she laid down to cry out her desolation, she could no longer hear the stone's gentle song. It was just a stone again; cold, dark, and unforgiving.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Bon Temps

SOOKIE WATCHED THE SKY bring new life to the dark and empty graveyard as the sun rose in the east. The damp chill of morning brought her numb mind slowly back to reality. One world had again been traded for another and there was no going back. Her only choice was to move forward. Robotically, she lifted herself off the bench with quaking hands and took a few hesitant steps toward home. She felt empty, soulless, dead inside, and she questioned whether there was any point in continuing on. In that moment, her life seemed more like a bad joke than a meaningful pursuit.

The familiar sight of Gran's headstone brought her back to herself for a moment and, as she passed by, she kissed her palm and laid her hand upon the chill, wet earth. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she sat silently contemplating how much she missed her grandmother. After some time passed, her muscles began to cramp and ache, reminding her that it was time to move on. She rose as if pulled up by invisible strings and her feet, one in front of the other, found the familiar path back home.

But the home she remembered was not the same one that awaited her. The house had fallen into a state of such complete disrepair that it was only a husk, a hollow remnant of the place she had loved so much. Empty liquor bottles and other garbage were strewn about the yard. The dead-eyed windows were boarded with wooden x's, and police tape clung loosely, sagging and broken in places, to the porch and front door. "Ohmigod! What happened here?" she whispered quietly, but the rustling of the trees as a slight breeze moved them was the only answer. As she walked up the steps, she saw a black high heel lying forgotten on the porch. _Who could forget their shoe and never return for it?_ she wondered absently, doubting that the owner of the shoe would have any sort of Cinderella story to tell. The air was heavy and still, full of cast off memories, ill-fated decisions, and lost chances.

On the front door, a notice had been posted:

**NOTICE**:

This property has been condemned

by order of the Renard Parish Sheriff's

Department. All trespassers will be

prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Eyes struck unseeing by virtue of witnessing too much tragedy read the notice. Just another irredeemable loss. Sookie felt the weight of it all, knowing that she had been the one to invite tragedy in and offer it a drink. _I'm so sorry_, she thought, over and over, a silent, unanswered prayer for absolution. But she knew that she would never forgive herself. Even if everything could be forgotten by those she loved, she would never feel worthy of it. It was the Hour of Lead, made worse by the fact that she could not even pinpoint when exactly she had taken her first faltering steps down this crooked road of ever-mounting damage.

Sookie pushed the door open and it scraped against the broken glass littering the threshold. As she stepped inside, carefully trying to avoid the shards of glass in the dim light, her senses were newly assailed by the mixed smells of old vomit and urine. She raised her hand to cover her nose and mouth as she gagged and swallowed hard against the bile that rose in her throat. There was hardly an inch of space that had not been touched by filth or violence. Smashed furniture, shattered collectibles, and obscene words, _WHORE, VAMPER SLUT, WITCH_, spelled out in fluorescent-colored graffiti on the walls met her sorrowful gaze. _How could anyone do such a thing?_ she wondered. Her grandmother had been a pillar of the community and she herself, despite the special gift that set her so incongruously apart, had always tried to do right by the town.

It was hard to accept that her family home had been destroyed not by a few rogue individuals, but by many people who meant to leave no part of her family's legacy intact. She checked drawers and cabinets for valuables, hoping that something would be left, but anything of value had long since been stolen. _There's nothing left_, Sookie's unbelieving mind went over the words again and again, trying to force some level of acceptance as she climbed the stairs to her room. The room looked more or less the same as she had left it, she noted with a dubious sense of relief. Apparently, no one had thought it necessary to try and visit further ruin upon a room that was already trashed after her bloody battle with Debbie. Her brown eyes lingered a moment on the dressing table with its smashed mirror. Seven years bad luck. A chill ran down her spine as she tried not to think of what more could befall her. Instead, she lay down upon the bed, pulled the comforter over her head, and fell into an exhausted sleep.

Sookie tossed and turned in her sleep, haunted by images of running hard, lungs burning, bare feet cut and bleeding, through the dark woods at night. She knew that she could not keep the pace forever and that eventually she would be run to earth, captured, devoured alive. The howling of the wolves followed her, relentless, never getting closer or farther away. Her limbs were getting heavy and she stumbled, falling heavily, slashing a long tear through the blue cotton of her dress, as the incessant rhythm engulfed all her senses. A sharp terror, deep and instinctual, passed over her as she struggled to lift herself off the ground with dirty, torn hands. But she could not move; her body was unresponsive, as if bound by an invisible rope. The howling got louder; the wolves were closing in. Then, from somewhere deep within, came a voice strong enough to penetrate her fear, _"Wake up! Wake up now!"_

Suddenly, Sookie awoke, bolting upright in bed and gasping for breath. It took a moment for reality to seep in and calm her. Listening hard for howling, for the sounds of danger, she could hear nothing but silence punctuated by the sounds of the woods. For a moment, she allowed herself to feel safe like she had when she was growing up, falling back amongst the blankets, wondering what Gran would cook for breakfast, and looking forward to another warm day of nothing extraordinary. But the fading light outside was that of another day ending, not beginning.

Sookie rolled over onto her stomach and put her hands over her eyes, trying to shut out reality. She pulled her knees to her chest and cradled herself, aching for comfort, yearning for strong arms to hold her, and a soothing voice to tell her that it would all be OK. Even though he had betrayed her trust, Sookie knew that she wanted Bill. Suddenly, she felt an intense sorrow for having banished him from her home. She knew she wanted to apologize, to forget the past, and start over fresh. _Will he forgive me? Will he protect me again?_ She had no idea, but she knew she had to try. _He promised he would always love me._ That one thought gave her the will to crawl out from under the covers and leave the protective confines of the bed. Her desire to see him propelled her as she made her way out of the room and through the shattered wreckage of her childhood home.

On her way out the front door, she noticed what looked like a playing card lying forgotten under an empty beer bottle. She stooped down to move the bottle aside and pick up the card. Turning it over, she immediately recognized that it was a tarot card and a chill ran up her back as she took in the image. It was the Ten of Swords. A disturbing and gory image of a man lying on a stone altar, ten daggers driven into his chest, arms, and legs. His face was obscured, but she almost could almost hear a groan of agony in the sudden gust of wind that came and blew the card free from her loose grip. She watched the wind gently whip the card about until it disappeared over the side of the porch. _Spooky!_ she thought, frowning, as another unsettling chill swept over her, causing her to shiver in the hot, humid air. Glad to be rid of the offensive image, she wiped her hands on her dress, and continued on her way. She did not pause to shut the door or cast a single look back.

A storm threatened in the steel gray skies above as Sookie walked the familiar path through the cemetery. Thunder rolled ominously in the darkening skies as the storm advanced and she picked up speed until she was running as fast as she could to the old Compton estate. Little rocks jabbed at the bottoms of her bare feet as every leafy branch or hanging limb she passed seemed to stretch out like long-fingered hands, catching and snagging on her dress, and scratching her skin. But she did not care about anything but getting to him. In her haste, she almost did not notice the FOR SALE sign staked in the overgrown yard.

"Bill! Bill!" Sookie shouted as she burst in through the front door. The last rays of twilight faded to black as she stood in the foyer, waiting, but only silence met her. Shocked and uncertain, she began to explore the house, calling his name, but to no avail. The house was bare. It looked as if it had been hastily cleaned at some point, although a new, even layer of dust had accumulated in the intervening span of time. Sookie shivered as she realized that the house was vacant and probably had been for a while.

Slowly, she patrolled the house, looking for clues to unlock this new mystery. There was no furniture left, upstairs or down. Even the old portraits had been removed. Sookie could see their outlines on the walls where the wallpaper had faded around them. She had little doubt that Nancy, the owner of the local antiques store, Now and Then, had been eager to help collect and sell all of Bill's things. All that was left were the light fixtures and the large blue rug that occupied the entranceway. Sookie was surprised that the rug had not been gathered for a price. But, upon further inspection, she saw that it was smeared with old bloodstains and had been so thoroughly trampled by dusty, booted feet that there could be no hope of removing the grime from the weave.

Wandering back into the living room, she looked closer at the damage to the walls and ceiling. _It looks like someone swung a piano around trying to knock the house down from the inside._ Sookie smiled at the absurdity of the thought and the mental image that accompanied it, but she felt sure that the gaping holes in the wall and the missing plaster from the ceiling were clues to knowing what had happened to Bill. _Where could he be?_ She knew that the house was Bill's since before the Civil War and that he would never willingly give it up. "Why hasn't he come for me?" she wondered aloud, trying to quell the rising panic that threatened to shake her sanity apart. Maybe there had been a fight between Bill and some other vampire, but she didn't want to think too much about what that might mean. "Bill! BILL!" she called with a renewed sense of urgency. She raced through the house looking for something, anything to unlock this new mystery.

Confused and despairing thoughts beat at her hastily erected wall of denial as each empty room and closet seemed to confirm her worst fears. As she was upstairs inspecting Bill's empty sleeping hole, squatting down low to duck her head inside, she heard a familiar voice bellow her name from below. "Erik?" she exclaimed, astonished, the floor cover slipping through her fingers to slam home with a loud bang. Jumping to her feet, she ran in the direction of his voice, and almost collided with him on the stairs. Before she had time to think or question, he swept her off her feet, holding her close to his body, sinewy and cold as stone. "Sookie, I thought I had lost you! Where have you been?" his voice was ragged, unbelieving, as he clutched her to him so tightly she had trouble catching her breath.

In that moment, all thoughts of Bill were forgotten. She drank in the sight and the feel of him, blissfully content within the safety of his embrace, as he carried her down the stairs to the landing. Nothing had changed with him. He still wore only black and moved with the sleek, smooth grace of a great cat. Erik gazed at her as if she were a mirage that might disappear if he looked away. He set her back down, still holding her near, his hand open on the small of her back. All the doubts, fears, and anger she had felt were gone. She knew that she was loved, that she would be protected. There was hope after all.

Erik lifted her chin with his index finger and kissed her, deeply and passionately, as he buried his hands in her hair. Sookie responded hungrily and flung her arms around his neck. She felt her knees threaten to give way beneath her, but she didn't care, nothing mattered. He crushed her to him and she could feel the hard muscles of his body through the thin fabric of her dress. Her hands ran up and down his back, his arms, grabbing handfuls of the soft cotton of his shirt, nearly drunk on the pleasure of the moment. It was then that she felt his fangs unsheathe and lightly scrape her lower lip.

As he broke from kissing her mouth, she remembered his question, and wanted to answer, but she was dizzy from the soft feel of his lips moving down her neck, the sharp, hard points of his fangs ready to pierce her flesh. She melted against him, arching her back and lengthening her neck, ready and willing to succumb to whatever came next. But then she opened her eyes, saw the old, faded wallpaper, felt the rough pile of the dirty carpet under her feet, and it all came rushing back.

_What am I doing? This is wrong. Not here. Not in Bill's house, _she thought, pushing back against him with her small hands. His arms loosened around her, his hands resting lightly on her hips, as he looked at her quizzically. "What's wrong?" he asked, frowning his disappointment, his eyes the cold color of a winter ocean, all whitecaps and wind.

"Where's Bill?" Sookie asked quietly, her eyes lowered. It wasn't really the question she wanted to ask because she was not at all sure that she was ready to hear the answer. But it was the only coherent thought that occurred to her in her scrambled state. Later, she could tell him about where she'd been and the heartache she felt at the thought of that lost world. Then, she could find the right words, or maybe she'd get lucky and he would forget all about it.

Erik's arms fell to his sides and his frown deepened; he would have to wait longer than he wanted. "Sookie, Bill is dead," he replied, calmly, evenly. "Dead! What do you mean he's dead?" she exclaimed as the blood drained from her face, leaving her ashen and pale. Competing waves of anger and grief seemed ready to tear her apart. She balled up her fists and struck out at what was closest. "You bastard! You killed him! I know you did," the words came out in hiccups and sobs as she futilely pummeled his chest.

He took the beating, allowing her an outlet for her misplaced fury, her strikes fazing him little more than mosquito bites. "I hate you," she cried, collapsing against him, her body racked with quaking sobs. It was not just Bill, she knew, but once the tears came, they would not stop until she had spent them all. Erik was patient. He had no idea where she'd been or why she was back, but he had no intention of letting her go again. He ran his fingers through the smooth waves of her golden hair and lovingly down her back. "I did not kill him, Sookie. He challenged the Queen and she killed him," he murmured softly, his lips brushing her cheek as he spoke. The last thing he wanted was for this reunion to be sullied with bad memories of his old enemy.

Tears fell down her cheeks, but her sobs had begun to subside. Her body was flushed and intoxicatingly warm under his hands. In that moment, he was grateful that his heart no longer beat, so he would not have to endure it breaking anew. "You know, Sookie, you've been gone for so long. I know all of this has come as a shock and you are hurting, but it's been done for a long time." She looked at him suspiciously, not sure that she liked what she was hearing, but she was listening. "None of this matters anymore. Let's just get out of here. We can go anywhere you want and I promise, in time, you'll forget all these bad memories." Erik wished he could glamour her; life would be so much easier if he didn't have to reason his way through everything with her. "How long have I been gone?" she asked. It was the only thing she could think to say in response.

Erik was stunned; it had not occurred to him that she would not know. But before he could answer, another, terrifyingly familiar voice chimed in, "About six months, give or take." In unison, they turned towards the sound to see Russell Edgington standing in the open doorway. "Surprise!" he said as a broad, ironic grin broke over his face. Their mouths fell open; it could not be, but yet he was there. The last time Sookie had seen Russell, he more closely resembled a piece of charcoal than a king. Now he stood casually in the doorway of Bill's former home, calmly watching them, elegantly attired in a dark charcoal pinstripe suit and a violet shirt he kept open at the collar, his large manicured hands hidden by dark leather gloves. No scars of any kind were visible to betray the torment he had endured at Erik's hands. The air seemed heavy, leaden, like trying to breathe underwater. Time lay dormant in the liminal span between the crossroads and the next path taken.

Then, Russell broke the silence, looking pointedly at Erik. "Hand over the girl and I promise to give you a quick, merciful end," he said in a voice that was all cold steel. "Fuck you! I'll die before I give her to you" Erik responded, baring his fangs. He pushed Sookie away from him so hard that she stumbled, falling to her hands and knees on the trampled, musty blue rug. In the span of a heartbeat, Russell secured Erik by wrapping a silver chain around his neck.

The flurry of motion was over before Sookie had a chance to lift her head and see Erik rush at Russell. It was brave, but suicidal. Erik did not land a single blow before he was on his knees, powerless, as the chain burned into his neck, sending tiny wisps of smoke into the still air around him. "Let him go, you monster," Sookie shouted, terrified, not knowing what else to do. Russell pulled Erik across the short distance from the door to the staircase and lashed the chains around the newel post.

Erik groaned against his bonds, struggling mightily, but only succeeded in cutting the burns deeper and grating the old paint from the hard wood. Blood ran in thin lines from his nose, ears, and icy blue eyes. He looked to Sookie like he had been slashed by a madman and, for a moment, she wondered if she hadn't fallen into a scene from some awful horror movie. _Wake up!_ she screamed inwardly, but it didn't matter. She knew she would never forget the way Russell stood above his captured foe, proud, triumphant. The scene was a visceral image burned into her memory, not some surreal nightmare she would awake from to find safety. Without Erik, she would have no one and that scared her worst of all.

"Not going to happen," Russell purred in his smoky Southern drawl. "I've waited too long for this moment. Neither of you is going to escape me again, I promise you," he said it with a wink that made her insides quake like someone had just walked over her grave. "I killed you. Why aren't you dead?" Erik croaked, his eyes burning with hatred. Russell fixed his attention back on Erik and stepped down to the landing. "You certainly had your chance to kill me, but you blew it, didn't you? You thought it would be more fun to torture me and hope I died in that concrete cell, you fucking fool. In all honesty, to successfully kill me, you would have to be a much more methodical and meticulous creature, not so angry, hotheaded, and impetuous. Not that it will matter much longer for you, but when taking on such a large challenge, it is important to make sure all the loose ends are tied up or else, well, you pretty much end up just like you are." Russell smiled big again; in victory, he was the picture of wicked glee. "How did you do it?" Erik knew he was going to die, but before he did, he wanted to hear exactly how it was that he had had the world in his hands and lost it.

Despite the close heat, cold sweat dampened Sookie's hairline, covering her skin in a fine sheen, and the air around her was heady with the dank smell of fear. She sat unmoving, transfixed, the dirty rug leaving gray-brown smudges on her strong, tan legs. She had no choice but to watch in horror as her fate was decided. Russell thought for a moment before answering, deciding how much to share. "It really wasn't all that difficult. You didn't kill my only progeny when you staked Talbot, just my favorite one."

Mentioning Talbot's name clouded his features with remembered grief. The broad smile changed to a pensive frown and his foot shot out to catch Erik in the ribs with a hard, sharp kick. Erik coughed, groaning in agony as he sagged further back against his bonds. "Anyway, perhaps you were wondering how I found you and Sookie. It was child's play, really. In fact, it is a bit amazing to me that a vampire as old as you had no idea that he was being watched for so long. You didn't know, did you? Maybe something inside you wanted to be caught. I've seen it before," he said, chuckling.

Erik's hands shot out from where they rested at his sides, trying to reach for Russell's throat, but his grasp fell short by mere inches. Russell took a quick step back, momentarily surprised. In a flash of movement, he grabbed Erik's wrists in his gloved hand and secured them with silver handcuffs. The handcuffs steamed, burning his wrists raw. Erik moaned, sad and defeated, in the wake of additional torment.

"I thought those might end up coming in handy," Russell quipped. "Anyway, I believe you have something of mine…" He reached his hand below the collar of Erik's shirt and grabbed hold of a finely worked gold chain. Swiftly, he yanked the chain hard and Erik felt the delicate metal break from around his neck. As Russell held it up, Sookie could see a single long fang dangling from betwixt the ends of the broken chain. _That must be the fang Erik took off of him at Fangtasia_, Sookie thought, marveling at how distant the memory seemed.

Russell deposited the chain in the pocket of his suit jacket and he knelt down on the warped, dusty hardwoods, leaving Sookie in possession of the carpet. She was acutely aware of him as he watched her, the devious cast of his eyes telegraphing an unknown, wicked intent. He seemed unhurried, calm, as if he did not want to scare her any more than she already was. "Why are you here?" she asked, her voice shaky. She was not entirely sure that she wanted to hear the answer. He regarded her as a cat regards a mouse, enjoying the fact that she was cornered and terrified. "I'm here for you, sweetheart. I have big plans in mind. Why else?" his words were honeyed, measured, patient.

"I will never be yours. And I will never help you with your fucking plans!" she hissed through gritted teeth. Russell's attention had momentarily shifted back to Erik, who had renewed his futile struggles against the bonds that held him. The sharp movements only caused the silver to dig deeper into his flesh. But to Erik, it was better to try and fight then to sit back quietly, resigned to the latest hand fate had dealt him. Seeming satisfied that the chains would hold, Russell shrugged, "Willing or unwilling, it makes no difference to me, but things will go easier for you if you cooperate." He winked at her then, smiling just like the scoundrel he was: happy to get away with whatever he could.

Sookie thought her head might explode. How could he say something so utterly vile and offensive in such an offhand way? Fear was replaced with anger, and anger, not having any useful outlet, made her say something stupid. As she parted her chapped, pink lips to speak, she knew it was a mistake, but the impulse would not be denied. "I will die! If you harm Erik or lay a finger on me, I swear I will kill myself. You and your plans can go straight back to whatever hell you came from!"

Russell fidgeted and shifted his weight to the other knee; he was growing tired of this game. "Don't trifle with me, Miss Stackhouse. I'm not in the mood for it. So let me make myself perfectly clear, if you take such an action to deprive me of what I want then, I swear to you, I will make it my mission to hunt down and kill everyone you have ever known or cared about. Bon Temps will become my exclusive hunting ground. Do you understand?" He articulated the last few words slowly, as if he were talking to a dim, willful child.

Sookie hated the way he talked to her. _Of course, I understand. I'm not stupid_, she thought. But she held her tongue, and nodded slowly, refusing to meet his eyes. Rocking back on her heels, she folded her legs to her chest and hung her head. She looked absently at her dirty hands, gray with dirt and dust. The front of her dress was likewise streaked with grime. It was as if the old Compton house, filthy from neglect and disuse in the wake of bloody misfortune, had left its mark on her.

"You're mad!" Erik croaked in a pained voice, raw and hoarse. But Russell was through listening to him. "Maybe," he replied, his attention focused solely on Sookie. In that moment, Erik hung his head, utterly defeated. He had blinded himself, been reckless at a crucial time, and now he was powerless to stop the scene about to unfold before him. It was his final punishment; one last hellish torment before it was all over.

Russell reached out and wrapped his hand around Sookie's ankle, intending to pull her closer to him. His touch awoke some primal instinct within her, slamming her dazed mind back into reality. All of a sudden, the nightmare was no longer playing out before her like some twisted, surreal movie. She kicked his forearm hard with her other foot and Russell, surprised more than hurt, momentarily dropped his hold.

In an instant, she was on her feet and ready to run for the open doors. But she barely had time to breathe in that direction before Russell was upon her. Seizing her hands, he held them firmly against his chest with one gloved hand. "I wouldn't do that if I were you," he hissed, his grip like iron. "My wolves would rip you apart for sport. And while that might be fun to watch, I have a more important purpose for you to serve." Sookie blanched, which dulled her normal tanned glow, and she wondered inwardly if there ever was a more evil being created than Russell Edgington.

She stepped back as he pushed her struggling form back down to the scant pile of the aged, filthy carpet, its flower design almost imperceptible through thick layers of dust. As first one knee hit the ground and then the other, her brown doe eyes grew wide with fear. "Dear God, no! Stop! Erik, help me!" she half-cried and half-screamed. Erik simply slumped, abject and powerless, against his bonds. He stared stonily ahead, fixated on the white double doors before him, unwilling to see Russell force Sookie to the ground, laying himself full length upon her, securing her writhing figure with the weight of his body. One hand clamped down over her mouth, the close smell of the leather bringing her near to vomiting, as he pinned her wrists to the floor above her head with the other hand.

"I told you I'd never think of anything else ever again," he whispered into her ear before his lips trailed lower to lightly kiss her neck where the softly throbbing vein betrayed her quickened heartbeat. Her eyes opened wide in horror; the round, dark orbs ringed entirely in white and framed by long lashes. _God have mercy_, she prayed, bracing herself for the worst.

His body was strong, heavy, and cold as stone. Her stomach churned with fear and apprehension. She felt his fangs unsheathe and graze her tender skin like twin blades, but the bite did not come. Instead, he drew back, uncovering her mouth as he did. Sookie spit, coughed, and hiccupped, practically gagging on the fresh air. She squirmed and bucked to free herself from his looming form, but he pushed her hard back to the floor, his hand open on her abdomen, fingers splayed between her breasts where the soft, blue cotton of her dress pulled tight.

"Please don't," she wept, tears springing unbidden to her eyes, streaking parallel lines down her temples. Russell ignored her plea, having heard about all he wanted to from either one of them. He released his grip on her wrists and his hand slid down the curves of her body to grab at the hem of her dress. A deep blush showed beneath her tanned skin as he roughly pushed the skirt up her thighs and over her hips, exposing her shell-pink underwear.

His hands, though tempered by the warm friction of the leather, pressed cold and hard against her skin as he bunched the fabric in uncomfortable folds under her waist. In the next moment, Sookie felt him re-adjust his weight, pushing her legs apart with his knee. Time moved in achingly slow increments while her senses, heightened by fear, were agonizingly aware of every move he made, every breath that passed as he made ready to take what he wanted. _And all of it in front of Erik, even if he pretends not to see_, she thought mournfully.

Her mind struggled to grapple with the overwhelming feelings of humiliation and shame. She wished she could lift up out of her body, watch the scene unfold from a safe vantage, and deal with the damage later. But it was not to be. Suddenly, she felt his mouth on the smooth skin of her inner thigh, wet and seductive, right before his fangs sank deep into her flesh. She cried out in pain, again renewing her futile efforts to snake away from his hold. He held her leg tightly; his fingers pressing so hard into the long, flat muscle that bruises sprang up, purple and yellow, like ugly flowers to remember an awful day. Still, he drank, deeper and deeper, holding her immobile.

_I wonder if this is it. I never got the chance to tell Erik I love him._ Her thoughts echoed dimly through the dark corridors of her fading consciousness. But, in that moment, she felt intensely sorry for the lost chance to live a new life, to start over, and make everything right that she had done wrong. As the sweet oblivion of unending sleep beckoned, she winced involuntarily as Russell retracted his fangs and her flesh clung slightly to the sharp points, blood pooling and spilling from the twin punctures.

Russell stood, dabbing the blood away from his mouth with a handkerchief. He seemed entirely satisfied as he regarded Erik once more. "To the victor go the spoils," he taunted, his hazel eyes twinkling merrily, full of new life. Even though Russell was close by, his voice seemed distant as if she was hearing him from the other side of a long, blind tunnel. She didn't hear Erik respond, and her thoughts sluggishly crept toward wondering if he had. "Well, before we say goodbye, you and I have a score to settle…" Despite her best efforts to listen, Russell's words trailed off, and then everything went black.


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Jackson

BLIND AND FLAILING in a darkness so deep it seemed no light could penetrate, Sookie began her new life. Sleep claimed her for many days. Sleeping and waking were almost indistinguishable states and, given the choice, she preferred to sleep. Only there did peace exist in small intervals. The faces of those she had loved and lost would appear behind her closed lashes, bringing her a small measure of comfort. Sometimes they would try to speak, but the words spilled soundlessly from their mouths. The arms extended out to hold her were only mist. And when they disappeared, suddenly and without notice, or slowly dissolving away into nothing, she knew herself to be naked and alone, clutching at ashes.

But it was preferable to lying awake for long moments, blinking her eyes in utter darkness, unable to tell, except for the movement, whether her eyes were open or closed. The rest of the time, she thrashed among the covers, running to nowhere from monsters and ruin, tossing and turning, powerless to stand and fight. The dreams were visceral and disjointed, only the themes remained stubbornly constant, and she awoke gasping, breaking the surface to fill her lungs after a difficult and uncertain dive. Rubbing her eyes with shaking hands, she began to become aware of her surroundings.

She was sunk into a feather mattress that swallowed her every movement. The air was stale like it was gray from having been locked up and forgotten for too long. Sookie's palms were clammy as she gathered the soft cotton sheets to herself. She felt dull, empty, and her stomach knotted and grumbled its displeasure. It was too wretched, lost in the total black with the close humid air that made her want to throw up. Looking dead-eyed into nothing, Sookie tried to ignore the vile taste in the back of her throat. It didn't seem worth it to be awake in the eerie dark and her weary body fell back into the cold comfort of sleep.

Sookie awoke again in the endless night to a hand on her shoulder, gently shaking her back to life. She bolted upright in alarm, "Ohmigod!" she exclaimed, adrenaline beating rapidly through her veins. A light was on, but it took her bewildered mind a moment to get over the initial shock of fear and panic to take in the overwhelming specter of this unknown, unexplained place. The hand that had shaken her awake belonged to a woman Sookie had never seen before. Panic once again set in. "What are you doing?" she demanded, pulling away from the stranger's touch.

Sookie waited a few moments, but no answer came. Her vision was cloudy and her eyes were puffy, sticky dry, and painful to blink, but she forced them to focus on her surroundings. The intruder was a young woman whom Sookie guessed was not much older than herself. She was possessed of an effortless beauty, which made Sookie feel guarded and self-conscious, especially in her exhausted and vulnerable state. No make-up; long, auburn hair pulled back in a loose ponytail; jeans and a plain, fitted white t-shirt made the stranger look like she should be wandering some random university campus rather than sitting silent, green eyes blank and staring, on a slim antique chair with needlepoint cushions next to the bed. Whoever the stranger might be, she was not the sort Sookie would have expected to see transported into her strange life, especially during this latest, mysterious turn.

Sookie was furious. "Are you deaf? Who are you? What do you want?" she demanded, fear and confusion lending a tremulous volume to her soft voice. But the woman remained as she was, still and silent, refusing to open her pink, cupid's bow lips to speak. Sookie sniffed loudly in derision and let her weight fall heavily back against the carved mahogany headboard, accidentally whacking the back of her head against one of the panels. "Ouch! Goddammit!" she yelped, reaching a hand back to rub the sore spot under her golden mane of matted, oily hair.

It was then that Sookie realized that her dress was gone and she lay all but naked, except for her underwear, under the white, lace-edged sheet she held tightly to her breast. She flushed with embarrassment, momentarily forgetting her frustration, and peered around, trying to see if her dress had fallen to the floorboards around the canopy bed. But the dress was gone and the stranger still made no attempt to communicate. As her eyes scanned over the dimly lit room, Sookie noticed that they were not alone. The white double doors were open, allowing light to spill in from the outer corridor, and a man stood in the shadows, watching.

When he saw Sookie notice him, he stepped into the light. He was tall, almost as tall as Erik, and powerfully built with short-cropped dark hair, although his face was still hidden in shadow. Sookie shrank back instinctively, pulling the sheet tighter around herself, completely unsure of his intentions, but ready to try and fight if she needed to. "My name is Thomas," he said tersely. Sookie was relieved that he made no move to approach the bed. "I know your name. I am one of the guards assigned to protect you," he continued. "What? Why? Where am I?" Sookie asked, all in one breath, her bewildered mind clamoring for answers.

"You are in Jackson. I don't know why you are here. What I do know is that you are not allowed to leave this room. There will always be a guard outside the door, so don't even think of trying to escape." Sookie went ghostly pale at his words. _Jackson! Of course, where else?_ To be Russell's prisoner until he sacrificed her to whatever greater purpose he had alluded to before. Or maybe he would just get too hungry one night and drain her down to a wrinkled, withered husk.

In any case, it was too awful for her to continue to think about. The guard gave her a moment to digest this information before continuing on in his low, gravelly voice. "Don't bother trying to make conversation with your maid there, like I heard you trying to do before. She has been glamoured into silence. She will bring you food from the kitchen, clean your room, and attend to your needs. There is a bathroom through there," he indicated with a sweep of his hand.

In the gloom, Sookie could barely see the door, which was almost hidden around the side of a large, burnished mahogany armoire. "Anything else you need, and you can ring the bell. Other than that, I suggest you eat something and get your strength back. You're going to need it." When he was finished speaking, he turned and removed his forbidding presence from the room, resuming his post and leaving the door open, presumably so he could keep an eye on things.

Sookie picked up the small bone china bell with its swirl of red roses and it jingled merrily in her hand. The guard turned his stony gaze from the corridor wall to give her a disapproving look and she self-consciously stilled the tongue with her finger. Hearing some answers, as awful as they were, was a relief. A respite from the weight of not knowing that threatened to break open the ground beneath her and swallow her whole.

Hungry for more, she reached out to his mind, unconcerned with whether it was right or wrong. Her need to survive, her dissatisfaction with being told the when and why of things trumped the rules about what was proper. But, as soon as she had done it, she wished she had just left well enough alone. His thoughts were snarling, vicious, a red and black dungeon of bloody endings and the slathering excitement of the hunt. He was just another werewolf; a low, common sort, who, if left to his own devices, would more gladly rend her flesh from bone than guard her.

A sharp headache tore at her, burning behind her eyes, and her famished stomach cramped, demanding food, although she felt far too full of despair to actually eat anything. A food tray rested undisturbed on the plush ottoman at the foot of the bed. Sookie stared blankly ahead, too hungry to eat, too tired to sleep. The thought that going to sleep would only result in waking up to the same nightmare was unbearable.

She wished she could be anything but what she was: a flawed vessel destined to be shattered against the rocks. Elizabeth's gaze rested on her, soundless and without judgment, and she seemed to be waiting. Sookie didn't want to look at her, didn't want to hear thoughts that were all haunting chords plucked from the strings of a harp and distant, sad echoes of lost voices. _Go to sleep, _and it was the barest impression of a thought to cross the divide. Having nothing else to do, say or think, Sookie decided to eat later and let her eyes fall shut. The wolf was right, she would need her strength; the war was not over, it had just begun anew.

Sleep lent little comfort. Sookie tossed and turned, unknowingly binding herself in a cocoon of lace and Egyptian cotton. In her dream, she rested in a place between spans of time, where the aeons stretched out on either side of her like two separate, unfathomable seas. Her dress was heavy, sodden with a viscous black pitch and it held her to a craggy rock, its sharp planes and edges cutting into her back like honed blades. She could not move as she was held with no mercy between two blank seas. Her mind churned with confused and panicked thoughts, drowning out any quiet voice of reason that might reassure her that it was only a dream, a very bad dream.

A spectral hand appeared, or maybe it had been there all along, hidden in the mist obscuring her vision. The hand advanced towards her as she pressed herself further into the rock, its jagged planes and edges offering scant protection. She knew what the shade wanted as it stretched its long, smoky fingers to graze her lips. Panicked, Sookie snapped her head back, hitting a sharp point that felt like a dagger to the back of her neck.

Forgetting herself, she gasped and the hand found entry. Her nostrils filled with the smell of old cigar smoke and she gagged, wanting to retch. But she held herself motionless, as the phantom reached down her throat to grasp the bright, glowing orb that floated in her chest. Her mind screamed denials as she felt the light pulled from her chest. It floated before her unbelieving eyes, held by an invisible force, the only light against a dark indigo sky filled with seething black clouds and the dark, white-capped waves rolling angrily underneath.

In the distance, a great clock began to chime the hours. She could feel the vibrations reverberate through the sky, silencing the storm. _One, two, three,_ it sang, counting towards a deep and endless midnight before it stopped entirely. Then there was only silence except for the crashing of the waves. She knew then that she had lost the sun and all that was left was to wait to be beaten apart by the waves. The sea turned more dangerous, sending rolling waves that crashed over the rock, drenching her further, tearing the clothes from her body, as she tried to spit the water out before it filled her lungs.

Sookie's eyes popped open and she barely dared to breathe in the eerie, dark silence. From far down the corridor, she could hear the sonorous _bong, bong, bong_ of a grand old clock moving time forward through a cavernous tomb. She was shaken by her dream, unsure if it was better to be torn asunder as she slept or be awake to face having her sanity taken apart piece by piece in the stale air of a sunless room. Her eyes darted around as she tried to focus, but she could not even see the hand she held in front of her face, only indistinct fireworks as the rods and cones in her eyes fired uselessly, casting about for form.

Rolling over, she reached out blindly, her fingers stretching out to feel the smooth rigidity of the mahogany nightstand. She fumbled around, knocking over a cut crystal tumbler that fell to the carpet with a heavy thud. _Shit!_ she thought, reaching down to pick it up and grimacing at her unintentional clumsiness. She pulled herself closer to the edge to the bed, the pale hairs stood up on her arms as she reached out with both hands to grasp the bulbous base of the fragile blown-glass lamp. Turning the switch, the lamp blazed to life, illuminating the room with the dim light of its single bulb.

Sookie threw back the covers that had grown warm and musty from sweating out too many nightmares. Leaning over the foot of the bed, she saw her meal still sitting untouched on the low, beige ottoman. Not caring to leave the bed, Sookie flopped onto her flat stomach, which had ceased rumbling for food and was now just a hard cramped knot, like a rock weighing down her center, and picked up the warm glass of orange juice, the pulp floating on the top congealed into a solid mass. The sweet, acidic taste burned her parched throat. There was also oatmeal with milk in a gold-rimmed china bowl, crusty and cold from being left out so long. Sookie held the bowl to her nose and decided it was just this side of sour.

She wrinkled her nose in disdain as she returned the bowl to its wooden serving tray. _Eat or starve_, her better nature cautioned even though she felt herself turning green at the thought. Picking up the weighty, intricately crafted gold spoon, she forced herself to eat. The food turned to ashes in her mouth, tasteless and foreign, and left a bitter aftertaste like poison. She gulped the food down, trying to focus on the fact that it was sustenance, that she still loved life enough to want to live it, and not on the fact that every bite brought her closer to throwing it all back up. _Fine meal_,she thought bitterly as she swallowed another bite of crunchy oatmeal mixed with rising bile.

Finally, she threw in the towel, sick at heart that her only meal had become a battle of attrition between her weary body and old, bad food. Without much care for the delicate china, she let the half-full bowl drop the several inches back to its place on the serving tray, but the spoon jumped out of the bowl and clattered loudly to the floor in protest. Sookie's breath caught in her chest, she hadn't meant to make a commotion, and she suddenly felt scared. An insistent voice in her head warned her to be quiet, to tread lightly.

Suddenly, the door swung open and Thomas strode into the room, looking irritated. Her first thought was to apologize for disturbing him, but then that seemed ridiculous, so she lowered her eyes and hurriedly pulled the sheet up to cover her nakedness. In the gloom, he reminded her of Alcide with his swaggering bravado and his big, muscular frame, which was accentuated by silhouette. But this wolf was more menacing, less gentle. Sookie flushed as she felt his eyes moving hot over her body, lingering in the places where the sheet clung close to her warm, clammy skin.

"Good, you're awake. Clean up," he barked tersely as his attention moved to taking in the details of the room, sizing up any trouble she might have caused. "You have a visitor coming." And that was all he said, all he deemed her worthy to hear. She wondered if he came in and watched her as she slept, lifting back the sheets to fill his mind with lurid fantasies at her expense.

_Probably, _she decided, her thoughts turning jagged and icy. He was no Alcide, no kind of gentleman. He was probably the one who had stripped her naked in the first place, she mused unhappily. As if he sensed her dark turn of mind, Thomas turned on his heel and walked out of the room, leaving Sookie staring dumbly after him, clutching the sheet in red-knuckled, clenched fists.

After he left, Sookie knew she had to get up and do something. Swinging her tan legs over the side of the bed, she set her feet for the first time on the floor of her elegantly appointed prison cell. _A visitor? Who could he mean?_ she wondered as she absently rubbed her sweaty soles in the soft weave of the large, ivory hand-hooked rug, her unpolished toes tracing patterns around the petals and down the stems of the nondescript blue flowers. _Did he mean Russell?_ She knew he would be coming back, and a cold rush of gooseflesh swept over her exposed skin.

She prayed it was not him, she thought she might die of terror if she had to meet him again as she was; naked, vulnerable, and locked in a room that held no answers. But some deeper, wiser instinct whispered that when he came back, there would be no warning because surely he would not deny himself the further pleasure of catching his quarry unawares. In a way, the thought made her feel comforted in the moment, but it was not much different than the relief of putting off a root canal, one way or another she knew she would have to face the dragon and being immolated for sport.

_Fuck them_; she knew she would find a way out of this mess. She was not going to sleep her way to an early death in this airless space. Pulling open drawers in a hushed flurry, she found that they had all been emptied or perhaps they had never been filled in the first place. The top drawer of the large dresser was lined in soft, red felt. She laid her hand on it for a moment. The material spoke of fancy parties and ladies in silk who had need of entire drawers to hold their secret troves of diamonds and emeralds. Another world, not a shameful, lonely imprisonment with no real hope of redemption. The red reminded her of a bloodstain, of Bill, and how this whole mess started in the first place.

She closed the drawer too forcefully, causing it to bang against its hinges, and Sookie tensed at the unexpected sound. It was starting to sink into her consciousness how golden silence was. Her clumsiness could at any time bring her guard striding back into the room to catch her standing enticingly naked except for a pair of pink panties, moist with sweat. She was not anxious to test the limits of a wolf, his thoughts full of stone and cobwebs and a haze of interweaved shades of red, black and blue. She suspected that no sense of human compassion could faze what might lay behind that wall.

It was clear in her mind how it could all happen; Thomas throwing her roughly to the bed, tearing away her underwear, and pushing her thighs apart with calloused hands as she screamed in protest. But she did not know who she would scream for. _Maybe Russell?_ But the thought made her edgy. Firstly, because there was no one else and, secondly, because he might just come in and enjoy the show.

She shook her head, her thoughts becoming too dark, too fast. But, in each moment, she was becoming more aware of how precarious her situation was and how fast it could deteriorate into the kind of living hell that she had always feared in a nameless way. If such a thing came to pass, there was no reason for it to stop until she was too battered to withstand it anymore.

A wave of dizzy exhaustion hit her with sudden force and she laid her head against the warm, smooth mahogany. She ran a finger over the swirling patterns, temporarily comforted by the solid planes. At least it felt real when everything else felt frighteningly unreal. All the drawers were empty or, she suspected, had been emptied in preparation for her arrival. Likewise, the floor-length blue velvet curtains decorating the paneled bank of windows hung loose, their gold cords vanished. The more she looked around, the more it became clear that nothing was left for her to use to help or harm herself.

She sighed heavily, picking up the saltshaker from the tray as she padded silently to the open door near the fireplace. The meticulous nature of this cat and mouse game both confounded and exhausted her. Shutting the door heavily, she leaned back against it, grateful to have a solid boundary between her and the not-so-private nature of her captivity.

The travertine tile was unrelievedly cold under her feet and she shivered, folding her arms tightly over her breasts. It was as if the porous surface of the tawny beige stone still held the chill memory of a frigid subterranean river, silent and inky black, before the rough, ribald shouts of men and the violent blasts of the quarry machines found their means of profit. It disturbed her to be moving through her life an inch at a time, continually finding a despairing similarity between her plight and any object she happened upon.

The room was like an oasis, if only a small one. The same antique blue wallpaper with its swirls and tumbles of vines and flowers covered the walls as it did in the outer bedroom, expect for the small inset space where a large, claw foot bathtub lived, tempting her weary body with the soothing promise of comfort and relief. In that space, glass tile covered the walls and ceiling, the blues and grays swirled together like the confluence of two seas, one warm, and one cool. Sookie pushed herself off the door to gaze into the oval mirror hung above the washbasin. But the reflection that met her eyes was a traitor, an almost unrecognizable imposter. Gone was her effortless beauty and carefree smile.

She picked up the toothbrush and tube of toothpaste that accompanied a single bar of handmade lavender-scented soap as well as a hairbrush as her only toiletries. As she brushed her teeth, her mind played with the notion of any other uses for those common items. There was nothing she could think of to be done with the soap, toothpaste, or hairbrush short of throwing them at an attacker. She had to suppress a laugh from around a mouthful of bubbly fluoride froth as she imagined the look on any of her captors' faces if she launched a bar of soap at them in a futile attempt to defend herself.

The toothbrush held more promise and she pulled it from her mouth to examine it more thoughtfully. She had heard of prisoners forming makeshift shivs from simple items like toothbrushes, but she had no idea how to go about the process of making one. And even if she did manage to figure it out, she doubted it would be much of a weapon. More likely, if found, it would just result in even more trouble for her.

The girl in the mirror frowned, the corners of her lips turned down with tension and worry. Her brown eyes no longer sparked with fire and mischief, but were sunken and dull, ringed with dark circles. _I look like a raccoon_, she thought despairingly as she tried to run her fingers through her oily, matted hair. Her fingers caught in a tangle the size of a robin's egg and she wished she had a pair of scissors to just cut it all off.

Frustrated, she yanked at the knot, and tears ran down her cheeks as several hairs pulled free from her scalp, leaving her holding a wad of dirty blonde hair. Looking at it she began to realize that there was a real danger of the inner pressure boiling over. Suddenly, Sookie began to understand what it is that drives girls to cut on themselves or do other irreparable damage. It scared her, she'd always thought of herself as better than that, but with no control and no avenue for release, it was seductive to think that there was one thing she could do to change things for herself.

Kneeling down, she laid her cheek against the cold porcelain of the claw foot tub, bracing herself against an inner darkness that seemed ready to engulf her. She turned the hot water faucet on full blast, barely adding any cold to temper the heat before emptying the saltshaker into the water as she dreamily watched the steam rise. Her eyes focused on the tile mosaic behind and above the tub. Small, smooth, irregular pieces of tile fitted together by some talented artisan gave the impression of a lighthouse built on a cliff above a stormy, stygian sea.

The waves churned in violent disorder, tiny pieces of white glass capped the swirling blues, lending depth and dimension under grey clouds and a yellow moon. There were no ships in the scene, as if the lighthouse and the ships occupied separate, mutually exclusive spheres. It was beautiful, but it made her sad. The longer she looked at it, the more she felt like the left-out ship, too far away to see the beacon, clinging to life amidst a murderous ocean with no real hope of ever reaching home.

Finally, the tub was filled to her satisfaction and she lifted herself off the floor, peeled off her soiled underwear, laying them on the wash basin, so she could hand scrub them later, and lowered herself into the blistering, hot bath. In moments, the scalding water turned her lobster red and she laid her head back against the cool porcelain as her body sweated the sour taste of exhaustion and fear out of her pores.

The water moved in sinuous waves, made ponderous with the weight of the salt, and Sookie pushed her arms against the sides of the tub in a futile gesture to widen her pool of circumstance. She sat for what felt like forever, her thoughts dissipating with the steam, until she finally found the will to pull herself from her dreamy trance back to reality. Emerging from the tub, lightheaded from the heat and steam, she wrapped a towel around herself, and walked back to the bed where she fell asleep on top of the covers. As she drifted off to sleep, she knew that there was nothing left for her to do. She could only wait for what came next.


	4. Chapter 3

**A/N: Thank you to everyone for the positive reviews. I hope you enjoy this next chapter.**

Chapter 3: Caged Bird

WITHOUT WARNING, the door to Sookie's room burst open with a shudder, awaking her from the first sound sleep she had had since her capture. Sookie bolted upright in bed, astonished by the sudden appearance of a buxom, square shouldered, handsome woman with a frenzy of red curls that stormed up to the side of the bed. Black, magpie eyes assessed Sookie with an aphotic intensity that made her squirm self-consciously. Thomas followed the woman into the room and he stood leaning against the white, marble fireplace, a bemused expression on his face. "Who are you?" Sookie demanded.

In the dim light, she could better see the woman's cold, pale skin and red-rimmed eyes. _Another vampire!_ she thought, her stomach flipping involuntarily with dismay. She remembered when she thought vampires were exciting, but now she just wished they had never come out of the coffin. "I am Dr. Kozeta Petra, but you may say Dr. Koze. From you I want no trouble. I am here to drain blood for Russell. Keep quiet, cooperate, and we do OK," she said in clipped tones and a foreign accent Sookie could not place.

Her big, dark eyes regarded Sookie less as a person and more like a frog about to be dissected. Sookie watched with growing apprehension as she rummaged through a heavy black leather medical bag she'd thrown down on the bedside table. Her fingers were long and slim, tipped with bright red nails the shade of freshly spilled blood. "Your arm, give to me," the doctor demanded, holding out her hand expectantly. Sookie could see the needle and small plastic tube in Dr. Petra's other hand. "No!" she cried, pulling her arms tightly around herself and inching away toward the far side of the narrow bed.

Dr. Koze's eyes narrowed dangerously, "Give me arm or I tear off, _teveqele_. No arm won't be problem for Russell, right?" she said to Thomas as if Sookie wasn't even there. Thomas chuckled, the ugly intent in his eyes only slightly less frightening than the vampire doctor. "Well, what you decide?" she asked, tapping the heel of her black Loubiton pump impatiently. "Fuck you, bitch!" Sookie shouted.

The doctor smiled, wide and slow, and her eyes glinted with psychotic glee at the challenge. "What you think you say to me, _ngaterrestare_?" She moved instantly and soundlessly, grabbing the needle with one hand and Sookie's arm with the other. Sookie yelped in pain as the doctor hyperextended her arm amongst the billowy, rumpled covers. Fear and panic engulfed her mind and she flailed about, her movements swallowed by the feather mattress. The towel shook loose as she struggled, but she hardly noticed as her eyes focused on the needle advancing towards her bulging veins.

Without thinking, Sookie kicked out hard and watched the needle go flying from Dr. Koze's startled grasp. But she barely had time to flash a small grin of triumph before heavy hands seized her arms and Thomas's heavy body fell atop hers. His breath was hot and sour in her face, and she coughed sickly as she struggled to dislodge his weight. Her feeble attempts to free herself were all in vain. Sookie had the sense that he had been waiting for an opportunity like this to present itself. Reality faded into the background as the oppressive weight of his thoughts broke through her defenses.

In her mind's eye, she saw him take hold of her arms and haul her body up from under him. She saw herself helpless, eyes dulled by resignation, as he pinned her hands to the polished headboard. He bit her neck savagely, leaving the flesh red and burning as tears streamed unnoticed down her cheeks. Dirty fingernails dug into her breasts as his hands groped down her body. The beautiful, but bloodthirsty doctor watched from the side of the bed and ran the tip of her tongue over her fangs. Above her rouged cheeks, black, dead eyes lit only by a demonic fire delighted in Sookie's suffering, hungry for sex and blood.

Thomas moved his rough hands further down the length of her body as Sookie shuddered in revulsion. "No, please God, no," she could hear herself crying as his hands seized her thighs, pulling her legs open, so he could enter her from behind. Her cries only seemed to excite him as he grabbed a handful of her golden hair and pulled her head back. "Shut up," he growled, "or I'll let her have a go at you when I am done here."

Dr. Koze's garnet painted lips broke open in a toothy fanged grin at the prospect. And she laughed, a cackling sound that reminded Sookie of ravens arguing over road kill. A sickening feeling engulfed her as it dawned on her that she was no more than a pawn now. Her purpose in this new life consisted of being raped and drained, again and again, until nothing remained.

The mahogany grew slick under Sookie's sweaty palms as Thomas brutally thrust into her. She watched herself growing weaker under the onslaught until he finished, leaving her crumpled and devastated among the fine sheets. She pulled the cerulean comforter to her mouth to stifle the sobs wracking her body, and the blue was all she could see, all her mind would allow. A blue like spring, the color of the day where she would sprout wing, fly away, and be free.

His thoughts were like sludge in the back of her mouth, gray-brown and bitter.

_Snap out of it! Remember who you are_, she half-heard a voice cry from the back of her mind. In the momentary silence, the voice sounded like Claudine, and it was enough jolt her back to reality. "Get off of me!" Sookie shouted as she spit the putrid taste back into his face. The relentlessly determined cast of his features was instantly replaced by shock, and then anger. His eyes narrowed, darkening murderously and as cold fear overcame her senses, she knew that she had gone too far. "Cunt," he snarled at her through clenched teeth.

In the next moment, he drew his thick, rope-veined arm back and struck her flat across the cheek. The cracking sound of the blow reverberated in her mind like a shot in a cave. Her head lolled drunkenly as pain and shock washed over her. Thomas sat back on his heels, pleased with himself, and watched Sookie moan weakly, trying to curl into a ball, but finding her legs still trapped under his weight. A dazzling array of colors burst to life before her muddled gaze.

Sookie did not see the doctor remove a small clear bottle from her medicine bag and dampen a cloth with the contents. Suddenly, the doctor's pale, surprisingly strong hand clamped the cloth over her nose and mouth. The acrid fumes filled Sookie's nostrils. Her eyes opened wide for a moment as the faces before her blurred beyond recognition and reality slipped away.

…

Sookie tossed and turned, moaning softly, bound so tightly in a cocoon of covers she could not move her arms or feet. Her mind tumbled through a deep and dreamless sleep. Only the occasional faceless specter or disembodied voice was able to break through the fog, to rouse her slightly from oblivion. But she could not understand anything that was said and her soul continued to drift through an endless, nebulous darkness.

After several hours, Elizabeth returned, moving silently as a ghost in the dim light. She set down a new tray of food on the low ottoman, but the savory aroma of a hearty meat stew did nothing to rouse Sookie from her comatose state. Elizabeth unraveled the suffocating sheets and proceeded to strip the bed, rolling Sookie's leaden limbs out of the way as she worked.

From the hall, Elizabeth retrieved a shallow copper basin filled with warm, lavender-scented water and a soft cloth. Mutely and blindly, Elizabeth washed the sweat and grime away from Sookie's feverish skin. Sookie's hands and feet quivered and jerked as she muttered unintelligible strings of syllables into the stale, close air. Elizabeth looked long at Sookie, compassion filling her deep green eyes, but the haze that filled her mind kept her emotions far and distant.

In her glamoured state, melancholy notes plucked from an imaginary harp rose in vivid hues like dulcet butterflies before disintegrating into silence. It was an effective trick to keep her ordinarily keen mind docile, focused only on what needed to be done next to fulfill her duties. Her beauty and Russell's unrelenting desire to possess beautiful things had made her into a tongueless slave whose prospects for life rested in her ability to care for a prisoner far more precious to him than herself. Soon enough, Elizabeth finished her work and soundlessly exited the room, a slight frown pulling down the corners of her delicate mouth, leaving Sookie alone with only a rapidly cooling meal for comfort.

More time passed and Sookie continued to sleep like one already dead. But somewhere in that endless night, she felt a smooth, cool hand at her forehead, sensitive fingers running down her cheek, gentle like a whisper. It was night; she could hear the sonorous chirping of the cicadas in the trees outside her paneled windows. "Bill," she murmured softly, her head foggy and aching from the effects of the ether. With eyes closed, she clasped his large, bloodless hand between her two small, tanned ones, softly kissing his fingers, intoxicated by relief and gratitude.

"It's been so awful, Bill. You don't know. I dreamed I was locked up and held prisoner by Russell. I tried to find you, but you were gone. Erik told me you were dead. I didn't want to believe him. I knew you would come for me," she babbled, smiling. "I will always come for you," replied a low, warm voice. Sookie's eyelids flew open in shock and, dropping his hand, she bolted upright in bed. The sudden movement made her dizzy and her head lolled drunkenly as she met Russell's eyes.

He stood by the bed, dressed all in black, arms folded casually across his chest, as he regarded her thoughtfully. Her sweat-soaked mane of golden blonde hair hung in lank, lavender-scented ropes around her face. A large, mottled yellow and purple bruise bloomed on her swollen cheek. The sunny radiance she possessed had retreated behind dark-rimmed, sunken eyes, and skin grown sallow and ruddy from a lack of sunlight and nutrition. "You should eat more, my dear," he said, indicating the cold food with a slight nod of his head.

His words jarred her back to reality and, as his gaze drifted down to where her exposed breasts rose and fell enticingly as her breath came in short, ragged gasps, she realized that she was naked and staring. Quickly, she pulled the sheet around herself and her cheeks flamed red with embarrassment. "What do you care?" she asked. She fell back into the bed, not caring what he might answer, just so long as she could return to the relative safety of sleep.

Closing her eyes, she cursed herself, her luck, and the day she was born. She covered her face with her hands, trying to hide the tears that slipped unbidden from the corners of her eyes. A small, ironic smile lit his face as he took a seat in one of chairs by the fireplace. It pleased him that she found her situation unbearable. It was no more than she deserved. "Don't be like that, pumpkin. It hurts me that you think that I don't care. Look, I even brought you a gift," he replied.

She lifted her head, her wan cheeks moist with tears, and saw a scarlet-jacketed book on the low, cabriole-legged coffee table in front of him. "I don't want it. All I want from you is my freedom," she spat back at him, her voice ragged with emotion. Russell crossed one leg over the other and folded his hands over his knee, unfazed by her displeasure. _A book? Why on earth would he bring me a book?_ she wondered, confounded. It was the last thing she would have expected and the very randomness of the gesture further disquieted her thinking.

The cold, empty hearth behind him yawned open like the maw of some great beast. If she looked too long, she could feel a riptide open, pulling her towards a vortex of swirling blackness. She had had a glimpse of that place before, a place with no hope of salvation. _He looks like the devil waiting to welcome me to hell_, she thought as she took in his long-sleeved cashmere shirt and black slacks, belted neatly at the waist. His hazel eyes were intent upon her as he half-hid an impish grin behind his hand. "Put it out of your mind, sweetheart. It will never happen. I went to far too much trouble to capture you to ever consider letting you go. You are mine now," he said with an air of calm certainty.

Sookie's mouth went dry as she listened to him calmly explain the nature of her doomed existence. She shivered as she became aware again of her vulnerability; dirty, naked, with only a thin layer of Egyptian cotton between her and the eyes that drank her in like she was a rare vintage of wine. "You are wrong. I'll find a way to escape. I'd rather die than stay here," she said, finding some of her old spark and fury.

"Perhaps so, but you won't die. You will live and I will have what I want from you," he replied, the cold words heated only slightly by the warm cadence of his voice. Sookie blanched and suddenly she felt very small, like a figurine trapped in a music box. "You are wrong. Erik will rescue me. He loves me," Sookie croaked. It was her last, most desperate hope in the face of overwhelming despair. She knew it was foolish to reveal herself to him in such a way, and regret followed narrowly on the heels of her unthinking blunder.

Russell stood up and gave her a pitying look. "I hate to be the one who keeps bringing you bad news, my dear, but Erik is dead. I killed him, so I wouldn't bother holding your breath, waiting for a rescue that is never going to come. All that is left of him now is this," he said as he pulled a thin, gold chain from beneath his collar. A long, ivory fang hung suspended between the ends as he pulled it over his head and tossed it to the bed.

He rolled his eyes at her, exasperated by his own desire to want to appease her. "Did you honestly think I would allow him to live after everything that has happened?" he chuckled to himself, seemingly amazed at her unremitting stupidity. "There, now don't say I never did anything for you. That happens to be one of my favorite trophies."

His smug demeanor was belied only by the intensity of his gaze. Inwardly, she could feel herself shrinking away. She didn't want to see the hot desire in his eyes or think about where it would eventually lead. He was the executioner, calmly explaining her fate with softly rounded words as she laid her head below the guillotine's blade.

Sookie snatched the chain up and clasped it to her breast. "Erik!" she cried, horrified by his cruelty. She rocked herself back and forth, clutching her prize; it was all that was left of her life that was. Russell had no interest in watching her heartbreak unfold anew, but he paused briefly before leaving her alone. "Read the book, my dear. The past is gone. Try to make some peace with your new life before despair drives you mad."

With a wry smile, he blew her a kiss before opening the door. She watched in a stunned, emotionally blank way as he disappeared down the corridor. Thomas poked his head in quickly, refusing to meet her eyes as he satisfied his curiosity, making her feel even less like a person and more like the star of a circus sideshow. _He didn't try to drain me. Why not? Why else would I be here?_ she thought, astounded. The questions bothered her, lending a further sense of uncertainty, but somewhere inside she knew that he would be back.

The shattered remains of what had stood for hope only a few minutes before weighed heavily upon her soul. Suddenly, she felt very weak. It was too much to think, to have to continue to breathe the stale, fetid air, in and out. She curled up among the pillows, pulling the covers over her head, laying a kiss on the fang she held to her mouth as she cried herself to sleep.

But sleep would not come, so she lay awake listening to the thoughts bounce untethered around her mind like playing pinball on acid. More than once, she pulled a pillow over her head trying to smother the endless procession of unformed fears and specific regrets that plagued her. But any action she took only amplified the voices and the hot, wet smell of her breath as she breathed into the thick cotton brought her close to gagging.

_Russell is right, there is no reason to hope_, she thought, hoping in her mad state that acceptance might bring some peace, but it only reinforced her wretched anguish. Sometimes, as the hours dragged on, she caught herself wishing that he would just come back, drain her dry, allow her to find some peace, if only in death. Her cheek hurt and she could not bring herself to eat. Misery covered her like a blanket spun from sorrow and torment.

In the gloom, there was no way to mark the passage of time. She lay in bed, gazing blankly up at the crocheted coverlet laid atop the open canopy. If she stared long enough, she could almost lose herself among the delicate swirls, the time it took to form the precise loops. Sometimes, she could see her grandmother, head bent, rocking back and forth in her chair, the long hooks clicking as her hands moved with practiced ease.

She imagined that it was her grandmother who had made the coverlet and her heart ached for all the love she had lost. It was easy to slip into the fantasy. The room was a recently renovated addition to her family home. If she listened hard enough, she could almost hear Gran and Jason's voices cheerfully discussing the day's events. She tried to project herself to that place, but her presence was momentary, disembodied, and held apart. It was a small way to keep her memories of home alive.

Her stomach burned with hunger, clenching and tightening, keeping her from sleep. At one point, she convinced herself to eat, to fight back and not be content to lie down and die. But the stew had long since grown cold and an unappetizing thin layer of orange fat had congealed on the top. Undaunted, Sookie spooned the food into her mouth. The broth, which had smelled so tantalizing and rich, turned bitter and vile on her tongue. The hunks of meat and vegetables were rubbery, tasteless, and slid down her dry throat like lumps of coal. She could feel her body attacking itself, breaking down what was not necessary, to try and provide enough nourishment for her survival.

A searing headache ravaged her mind, blocking any feelings of remembered happiness like a wall of fire she could not cross. _If only Bill had never come to Merlotte's, if only he'd never come to Bon Temps, then none of this ever would have happened_, she thought, coming back to the thought over and over again. She could not release the idea that somehow there must have been something that she could have done differently.

But she could not bring herself to regret her love for Bill or for Erik. With them she had known the happiest, most exciting moments of her life, even in the face of the overwhelming obstacles they had faced. _Where did I go wrong?_ The question haunted her, breaking in like an unwanted guest, falsely promising some measure of peace if she could only pinpoint the exact moment of her fall. But the answer eluded her even as she went over every detail of her adventures in her mind.

She remembered a time when her dearest wish had been relief from the constant imposition of other people's private thoughts. Now, all alone, her dark wish granted, she could not find the strength to silence her own demons. She rolled over and a lank, oily cord of hair fell across her face. Everything around her was beginning to smell like decay. In the dank, stifling humidity, a constant sheen of sweat wet her skin causing it to gray and puff. Cleanliness had been a constantly reinforced virtue since the time she was young, but she could not summon the will to drag herself to the tub.

As much as she was revolted by the changes coming over her, she questioned the purpose in trying to reverse them. She was beginning to resent her own company, but some small voice whispered that maybe Russell would not want her anymore if she just gave herself over to corruption and melancholy. Perhaps, in time, the madness within her reasoned, the foulness would so permeate her being that even her blood might lose its decadent, sweet allure. She smiled slightly, delighted by her wicked plan to beat Russell at his own game and, closing her eyes, she found a short respite from her sadness.

...

The door to her room burst open with a rude abruptness that Sookie was coming to accept as normal. Dr. Koze strode in with an air of unchallenged purpose and pure conceit while Thomas trailed her as she rounded the bed. She was clad in a soft pink tweed pencil skirt with a slight flounce at the hem and a mother-of-pearl silk blouse that made Sookie all the more aware of her own abject state. Thomas coughed hard, "It stinks in here," he said. Sookie flushed with embarrassment, pretending to be asleep. "Yes, it does," Dr. Koze agreed, wrinkling her straight lined Greek nose in disgust.

"Wake up," Dr. Koze demanded. Sookie lay unmoving, not caring to see the doctor's sour expression or Thomas's pitiless gaze. "I said wake up," she repeated, dropping her black medical bag to the floor with a thud. Sookie rolled over, her half-lidded eyes crusty with old tears and barely concealed loathing. "Thomas, go make for her a bath while I work," Dr. Koze instructed. Thomas nodded and dutifully disappeared into the bathroom.

Alone, Dr. Koze grabbed the edge of the sheet and pulled it away, exposing Sookie's thin, naked frame. She regarded Sookie with her cold surgeon's eyes, taking in her pallor, the bruise that covered half her face, the itchy, red puncture wounds on her thigh where Russell had bitten her. "What do you want?" Sookie asked despondently, not really caring to hear the answer. "What I want, b_udallacke_? Silly question from silly girl. I want for you to live. Why else I here? You die and Russell blames me. Not going to happen. You feel sorry for self. You not know suffering. You no eat, I see. Keep it up. I bring in feeding tube, then you eat," she said, indicating the cold stew and its broken lily pad of orange fat with a wave of her hand. "I can't," Sookie protested, "I would rather die than continue on this way."

Sookie had never felt so pathetic and vulnerable. Her strength lay wasted in an abyss of bad memories that left her without the will to try to cover herself from the doctor's prying eyes. _Who cares what they see? There's no one left to protect me from these monsters. The sooner they get it over with, the better, _Sookie thought, her mind turning foreign and dark. She was becoming a stranger to herself, someone who she would not want to meet, someone who was lost to everything that was ever good in her life.

As if the doctor could read her thoughts from the deep frown that pulled down the corners of her mouth, she said, "Listen, what I say you. You suffer, we all suffer. You think you special? You think is free? Nothing free. Death always hunt you. You were given too much, now you cry. You no want to pay price. Too bad, is how things are. Is how things always are. Some, not lucky like you, want be vampires, want be special. But then is the thirst, wretched, never ending. You see? The past is dead. Don't ask meaning, just live. " Sookie digested the words as she had been unable to digest the food she was given. She wanted to cry more, explain that she had no one else to talk to.

The doctor busied herself with her preparations while Sookie stared up at the spiral posters of her bed, the coverlet with its web of woven snowflakes. The doctor's words left no room for her own thoughts. There was truth in them that she did not want to hear. "Give me arm. You not such good girl. You not fool me. Save tears for someone else, " Dr. Koze said, holding out her long fingered, red-taloned hand expectantly. Sookie lay unmoving, she felt drained of the will to fight, and all she had left was passive resistance.

Unfazed, the doctor grabbed her bony wrist and plunged the needle into Sookie's arm with cruel efficiency. Sookie winced at the sudden pain, biting down on her lip to keep herself from crying out. "Your life not so bad as you think," the doctor said with a flourish of her hand, as if emptiness could be remedied with luxury, in the same way sickness was dosed with medicine. Incredulous, Sookie turned her head back to face the doctor, her sunken brown doe eyes brimming with hatred. "Not so bad, you evil bitch, not so bad! I am a prisoner. I have lost my whole family. Everyone I ever loved is gone. Fuck you for telling me it's not so bad!" Sookie spat defiantly.

She did not want to hear anymore about how her pain was not real or how she did not have a right to it. The doctor smiled small, her raven eyes focused on the thin stream of blood beginning to fill the small plastic bag, its contents more precious than gold. Thomas snickered from where he leaned against the mantle, hidden by the shadows. Sookie's cheeks flamed red, she'd forgotten all about him, but once remembered, she could feel his eyes hot and hungry on her emaciated frame.

_Please God, please just let this be over_,she prayed. "The Romans have saying, _femije tekanjoze_. You live through anything. What is too much pain, you no feel, you no more live," Dr. Koze huffed as she applied a cool ointment to Sookie's bite wounds. "Shut the fuck up," Sookie replied angrily, not at all comforted. "Watch your mouth," Thomas's silhouette growled menacingly.

When the bag was almost full, Dr. Koze signaled for Thomas to approach the bed. "Take her to bath," she instructed as she slid the needle from Sookie's arm. Sookie felt Thomas's strong, thickly corded arms slip beneath her, gathering her to his chest. He smelled clean and warm with hints of clove and mint. In spite of herself, she nestled into the heat radiating from him. For a brief moment, she closed her eyes and pretended that he was Alcide bearing her away to safety.

Thomas carried her into the bathroom and held her for a long moment above the steaming tub. She could feel his fingers pressing into the tender flesh of her breast. _Let him have his cheap thrill_, she thought, disgusted with herself. Resentment and resignation dueled quietly within her as the reality that her body was no longer just her own was further reinforced.

Thomas smiled down at her, a broad lop-sided grin she might have found attractive in another life; that is, until he dumped her unceremoniously into the tub. Water cascaded up with the impact, soaking Thomas and creating small puddles on the cool tile. She fell, limp and heavy, a breath of life lighter than a cadaver, into the blistering water.

Sookie yelped as her tailbone hit the unforgiving base of porcelain and her skin flushed crimson. "Clean up," Thomas demanded, his dark eyes lit with wicked delight. He flung a washcloth into the tub with her as she sputtered and floundered, trying to find her composure. Without another word, he left her and she listened intently, trying unsuccessfully to hear the muted words that passed between him and the doctor as they exited the room.

Sookie sat unmoving for a long time, letting the heat seep in and soothe her tensions, even as a large bruise blossomed on her lower back. It was just another ugly reminder of her uncared for, humiliated state. She was grateful she could not see it, grateful that the heat, hunger, and pain blocked out the incessantly negative ramblings in her head. Time passed, the water began to cool, and Sookie finally found the motivation to do as she had been told. But it angered her; even her plan to defile her own beauty and make herself distasteful to her captors had been thwarted. With each pass of the washcloth over her long, tan limbs, she felt more complicit in her own powerlessness.

The soft sound of the door to the outer bedroom creaking against its hinges broke her tortured reverie. She listened to the muffled sounds of light footsteps, sheets being removed and replaced. _Elizabeth_, she thought as the mild, melancholy notes of a harp invaded and supplanted her own thoughts. Sookie did not want to see her maid, but she could not help feeling like a child hiding, silent and sullen, in the rapidly cooling water.

Soon enough, Elizabeth finished her work and Sookie's stomach churned uncomfortably from the aromas of a fresh tray of food. When she heard the door scrape closed, Sookie rose from the tub, washed, and set to dry the underwear that she had finally found the energy to clean. Only then did she return to her lonely bedroom.

She tiptoed to the bed, padding silently over the ivory rug, and inspected the latest offering. _What the hell am I doing? It's not like they don't know I'm in here_, she scolded herself, but she could not imagine having to confront anyone else. She looked down at the tray. Ham and eggs with a bowl of strawberries, coffee, a multivitamin tablet. Her body ached for nourishment, but she could feel her throat constricting, rebelling against the idea of eating.

She shivered, suddenly feeling very tired. _Maybe I can sleep for a while, eat when I get back up_, she lied to herself, knowing full well that if she could not manage to eat when the food was fresh, she would not come back to it later. As she stood alone and naked in the stillness, it occurred to her that she was being presented with a choice.

In times past, it would have been a thing of small consequence, not even worth thinking about, but her choices had become few and grave in nature. Her mouth went dry realizing that she could spend all day frozen in indecision and no one would stop her.

The longer she stood, the more grotesque a proposition it seemed to become. A vision of Dr. Koze passing a small silicone tube through her nostrils, down her esophagus to her stomach came upon her then. She imagined the doctor having a discussion with Russell about how she was failing to thrive, how there was no other choice to keep her alive. Sookie felt dismal, like she was little more than ash and blood. She knelt down before the tray, knowing there really was no choice, just the freedom to decide between the lesser of two evils. It was work to eat, the food turned to cardboard on the tines of the gold fork, flat and flavorless.

Sookie could not bring herself to eat more than half her meal, but felt pleased that she had staved off the feeding tube for a little while longer. _How long can I keep this up?_ she wondered dully. If someone had told her months before that eating would become a misery, a job that utterly wiped her out and made her feel ill, she would never have believed them. Now, she knelt like a supplicant before the tray. It was a symbol of her own ruin, her desire to quit life altogether.

Tears rolled down her cheeks as she rose on quaking legs to crawl back into the carved canopy bed. She pulled the comforter over her head as her thoughts drifted to how the blue reminded her of the pure color of a new morning sky. _Will I ever see the sun again_?she wondered as sleep came to her on silent feet, bearing the pain briefly away.

**To be continued…**


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Fate and the Furies

SOOKIE AWOKE FROM A FITFUL SLEEP feeling overwhelmed at the idea of spending more interminable hours in the hobgoblin of deceit and despair that was now her home. It was deathly quiet except for the low-pitched song the cicadas chirped in the towering maples outside the confines of the mansion. _Night again_, Sookie thought as a shiver of low dread overcame her senses.

With the night came the threat of further visits from Russell or the doctor, while the day brought only the unbearable question of how to spend her wealth of empty hours. Sookie's rich brown eyes drifted up, taking in the roses, petals unfurled and jagged to the touch, carved into the mahogany headboard. She felt in that moment that she would give her life to wake up to another view.

As she lay motionless, bereft of purpose, she remembered a time when she had wished for silence above all things. It had seemed to her then that in the vacuum of silence, with no one's thoughts to contend with but her own, she would find peace, a harmony that would allow her to co-exist with others in the world. Sookie covered her eyes with her small hands; she could not bear to see anymore. Tears streamed down from her clenched eyelids, wetting her cheeks under sweaty palms, as she fought to find some light, some reason to want to go on in the face of her deep state of mourning for all she had lost.

_Be careful what you wish for_, she reminded herself, the bumper sticker irony doing little to assuage her grief. Even with all her gifts, she could never have imagined a world in which the only relief from the pounding of her own thoughts would be the mating song of tree crickets in a world she could no longer touch. Her only way to mark the passage from night to day and day to night was the resonating tymbals of insects that grew louder at night.

_I have to do something, I'll go crazy if I continue to just lie here and cry_,she thought. She sat up and looked around. There was nothing to occupy her attention. Her meal tray had vanished in the intervening time and her stomach growled for want of sustenance. Stretching her arms wide to release the tension in her cramped back, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and walked into the bathroom to retrieve her underwear.

Sookie was dismayed to find that her underwear were not where she had left them. She checked the rubbish bin, around the floor, under the tub, but they were gone. _Damn, _she thought, feeling inexplicably violated and even more vulnerable than before. She felt panicked and her whole body shook as she raised herself up from her crouched position on the cold tile floor. _They were ruined anyway, _she thought, which helped to lessen the blow, but still they were all she had.

The bloodstains from when Russell had assaulted her at Bill's house had thoroughly set and stubbornly refused to be soaked out, even as she had scrubbed at them with her only bar of soap and pounded them against the base of the sink, splashing cold water on the floor. After all that, she would have thrown them out herself, in spite of the fact that she favored the delicate color and flattering cut, but they were the only clothing she possessed. She sighed loudly, knowing there was nothing to be done.

Resigned, she had to admit to herself that unless someone was in the room with her, she hardly noticed the fact that she was naked anymore. Her skin had become her clothes as if she inhabited some garden of arcane delight rather than a well-appointed, fetid prison cell. But, on this night, she did not wish to be caught unawares again. Feeling slightly less exposed and vulnerable, she returned to the room. Despite the heat, which kept the chill off of her bare skin, she pulled the comforter from the bed and wrapped it around herself like a cloak.

Taking a seat in the loveseat opposite the hearth, she contemplated its solid maple frame, the Silurian blue cushions adorned with delicate needlework: tiny crosses of pink, green, and yellow making a bouquet of flowers tied with a white ribbon. She traced her fingers lightly over the pattern, remembering better days when she and Gran had gathered flowers, worked on needlepoint together.

The empty hearth lay cold and still before her, impenetrably black in the dim light. _It must be the gate to hell_,she thought dramatically, feeling once again the pull of the empty, black cavern. It stood in stark contrast to the rest of the room, which was decorated like an artisanal ode to the color blue, to romance. The longer she looked, the more the walls seemed to close in around her. The wallpaper's cheerful riot of vines and flowers mocked her newly formed belief that she would never know love again.

Shivering despite the warmth, she got up, and turned the switch on the standing lamp. The additional light helped to dispel some of the gloom, but did nothing to improve Sookie's mood. _What am I supposed to do now?_ The thought echoed unanswered in her mind. She could not stand to go back to sleep, to schlep her way through more haunted dreams. She did not think she would be able to sleep anyway; every noise, every rustle of the curtains made her wonder if Russell had returned.

The low, polished maple coffee table still held the book he had left her. Rolling her eyes at her own inability resist temptation in the face of a boredom so absolute it threatened to consume her, she picked it up. She ran her fingers lightly over the scarlet jacket, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, Volume 1. _Oh dear God_, she thought, _He could not even leave me something interesting, something with a story to take my mind off things. What is this? English class? Another bad joke?_

She was tempted to throw it into the empty hearth, let it, and anything else he brought burn. But faced with the prospect of another night of empty, endless hours, she resumed her seat and began to read. Opening the tome to a random page, she skimmed over archaic, incomprehensible lines that nonetheless played like music in her mind.

Sonnet 40

_Take all my loves, my love, yea take them all; _

_What hast thou then more than thou hadst before? _

_No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call; _

_All mine was thine, before thou hadst this more. _

_Then, if for my love, thou my love receivest, _

_I cannot blame thee, for my love thou usest; _

_But yet be blam'd, if thou thy self deceivest _

_By wilful taste of what thyself refusest. _

_I do forgive thy robbery, gentle thief, _

_Although thou steal thee all my poverty: _

_And yet, love knows it is a greater grief _

_To bear love's wrong, than hate's known injury. _

_Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows, _

_Kill me with spites yet we must not be foes._

Sookie wrinkled her nose unhappily. _Yeah, take all my loves, do it, thief. That much I understand, you asshole, _she thought. The book was mocking her; Russell was mocking her, but she had nowhere to put her anger, nothing to do but read or stare blankly at the walls. For a moment, she allowed her mind to dwell on her lost loves: Bill, Erik, her family, and friends. All were gone as if they had never been. Sometimes, she could see their faces with an eerie clarity, but other times they were lost in the mist, unreachable no matter how hard she tried to remember.

The delicate pages whirred under her thumb, hardly more substantial than moth's wings, as she selected another passage.

Sonnet 30

_When to the sessions of sweet silent thought _

_I summon up remembrance of things past, _

_I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, _

_And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste: _

_Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow, _

_For precious friends hid in death's dateless night, _

_And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe, _

_And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight: _

_Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, _

_And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er _

_The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan, _

_Which I new pay as if not paid before. _

_But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, _

_All losses are restor'd and sorrows end._

Just as the bold, black ink seemed too heavy to be held by the thin gold-edged pages, the words weighed heavy in her heart. Sookie sighed, suddenly feeling very cold inside, and pulled the comforter closer around her thin frame. She did not want this vocabulary for processing her emotions. She did not want to be the person who recognized her own ruined life in poems written centuries before.

_Perhaps it was fate._ _Maybe there really was no other way. What if Dr. Koze is right and it is just the price I had to pay for my gifts? But it's not fair! No one deserves this, _she thought and tears began to roll unchecked out of the corner of her eyes._ What good is remembering? What good are tears?_ She angrily wiped her tears away with the back of her hand.

Looking around the room, desolate despite its luxury, she knew that without her memories there would be nothing left of the person she had been. But her tears did nothing to assuage the mounting wave of regret that crashed down upon her soul. Still, she could not stop crying; she cried for all she had lost, all the wrong turns down the twisting path, and most especially the awful result that she had never seen coming.

_Bong, bong, _announced the great clock, bringing Sookie back to her precarious reality. _Two in the morning, only three more hours before sunrise_,the thought comforted her only briefly. For while morning eased the threat of Russell or the doctor returning, it also carried the heavy burden of hours of idle, wasted time. As she gazed at the empty white marble mantle, she wondered if she would ever look forward to anything again. She feared that the barren hours would be all that lay between each terrifying episode she suffered at the hands of her captor.

With an exaggerated sigh, she returned her attention to the book. Flipping through to a new page, she read the final lines of Sonnet 29.

_For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings _

_That then I scorn to change my state with kings._

The words fell like stones. _Liar!_ she thought, _what a waste of time_. She missed Erik and ached for Bill's protective arms to hold her close. _Fuck this book. Fuck Russell. It's all a lie. I'm not better off without them. I needed them and now they are gone. I have nothing. How can that be better? _Her thoughts turned glum with frustration and she hiccupped a loud sob.

_God, help me, I miss them! _Suddenly, she was gripped by an intensely visceral memory of how it felt, how Bill had exploded into her heart the first time she took in his blood. It had been that way with both him and Erik. She laid her head on her tucked knees, allowing herself the comfort of indulging in the warmth of those sweetly erotic memories. To be so wanted, so desired; it was a high she knew she could never replace.

But as reality penetrated her daydreams, so did the old nagging questions, leaving her to wonder how much of their love, their protection, was ultimately devoted to her and how much towards the special quality of blood that ran through her veins. But there was no answer to that question, there never had been and never would be. When she really thought about it, she was not sure that she really wanted to know the truth. It was better to bask in the memories and believe what made her happiest. All the emotionally-laden thoughts and memories were making her feel tired again. The book lay temporarily forgotten in her lap, but as she stood to stretch her cramped muscles of her back, it fell to the floor. The leather-bound scarlet covers lay open on the floor like a broken-winged bird, the pages bent carelessly underneath.

Sookie could care less about damaging Russell's book, especially since she had never wanted it in the first place. But, as the book had slipped from her lap, a small piece of paper freed itself from where it had been tucked in the binding. Reaching down, she retrieved a folded page of newspaper. As she unfolded the page, she discovered that it was part of a page from a Bon Temps newspaper. The headline read MEMORIAL SERVICE HELD TODAY FOR MISSING GIRL. Panicked, she read on:

A memorial service for Bon Temps local,

Sookie Stackhouse, 26, will be held today

at 11 A.M. at the Bon Temps cemetery.

Ms. Stackhouse disappeared two months

ago and, after an exhaustive investigation,

the Bon Temps Sheriff's Department

issued a statement yesterday declaring

that the case has been permanently suspended.

Ms. Stackhouse, a waitress at Merlotte's Bar

and Grille, was involved with a vampire,

Bill Compton, who had recently resumed

his ancestral home in Bon Temps.

Mr. Compton is wanted by police for

questioning in connection to

Ms. Stackhouse's disappearance.

According to a source at the Sheriff's Department,

Mr. Compton also disappeared under mysterious

circumstances around the same time. A search

of Mr. Compton's property revealed evidence

of a violent struggle and the possibility of

foul play.

Some locals speculate that Ms. Stackhouse

has become a victim of vampires while

others have suggested that perhaps she

became a vampire herself. While the mystery

surrounding Ms. Stackhouse's disappearance

may never be solved, the citizens of Bon

Temps will mourn the loss of one of their

young people.

A candlelight vigil will be held

at 7 P.M. at the Bon Temps Good Faith Baptist

Church. Sookie Stackhouse is survived

by her brother, Jason Stackhouse, and

preceded in death by her grandmother,

Adele Stackhouse.

To Sookie's dismay, smiling out from its placement in the middle of the article was a newsprint reproduction of her high school graduation photo. "No!" The cry escaped her lips as the blood drained from her face. It was a breathless, strangled sound, and the article fell from her careless grasp as she covered her mouth to capture the errant sound. _Don't let him hear_, she prayed. Balling her hand into a tight fist to muffle her cries, she bit down hard, and screamed out her desolation with all the will and fury left to her weary soul. What came out was little more than the sound of a pinwheel whirring in the wind.

Her legs shook as she stood up, threatening to collapse underneath her like a pile of straw. On leaden feet, she plodded the few steps to the bathroom. Gazing at her reflection in the oval mirror, she could not believe the transformation that was overcoming her. Despair had left her eyes dull and bloodshot, ringed in dark, exhausted circles. Her pallor was accentuated by her swollen cheek, speckled like a gruesome collage of yellow, purple, green, and brown. Likewise, her arms and legs were covered in bruises from her struggles. Her old self, her wasted vitality, was slowly vanishing in a grey fog of decay.

_I might as well be dead. Everyone I have ever loved has died because of me and the way I am. Even if they are still alive, they think I am dead. Oh God, what is the point? What is the fucking point?_ she thought, turning away from the imposter who stared mournfully back at her from the mirror. Her heart felt heavy, its beat slowed, weighing her down like a stone lodged in her chest. She wondered where she would ever find the strength to keep it beating and, for the first time in her life, she questioned whether she wanted it to.

Sobbing, she sank to her knees under the oppressive weight of her sorrow. She clutched the fang that hung from around her neck as if it were a magic talisman that could make everything better. _Erik! How could this happen?_ she cried inwardly, lost in the memory of how much promise her life had once held. Wrapping the comforter tightly around herself, she lay on the chill tile floor and cried out her desolation until sleep stole in, mercifully releasing her from a world of regret for a short time.

Sookie awoke to strong arms lifting her off the floor. The smells of rough-cut cedar and sweat filled her nostrils. She opened her bleary eyes, trying to blink away the dried tears, and recognized immediately the hard lines of Thomas's jaw, the grave cast of his dark eyes. In the next moment, he sat her down; the comforter overwhelmed the diminutive chair, so that Sookie was held in a down cocoon. Before her on the squat table was a new tray of food containing a bowl of chicken noodle soup and a glass of red wine. Thomas took a seat in the loveseat and watched her intently with an expectant, pitiless gaze.

"Elizabeth is ill tonight," he said, unexpectedly breaking the silence. "So?" Sookie replied petulantly, "What do I care?" Thomas smirked at her saucy retort before his face clouded over once more. "It's not a matter of whether or not you care," he answered icily, "but I have been charged with bringing you your meal, so shut up and eat." Sookie bristled at his response, but as weak as she felt, she did not want this cruel wolf to get the better of her. "Well, you've done that, so why not leave me to eat in peace."

Thomas laughed heartily, "You'd like that, wouldn't you? I leave and you pick at your meal or maybe flush it down the toilet. No such luck, princess, I'm going to sit here with you until every bite is finished, so you might as well get started." Sookie felt the blood drain from her face. "Better and better," she replied sarcastically, wrinkling her nose to show her displeasure. She hadn't thought that anything could make the prospect of having to eat any more unpleasant, but her new life was quickly proving to her that things could always be worse.

Freeing her arm from the blanket, she wiped at the crust of dried tears and snot on her face before she picked up the spoon and began to eat. The herbed broth was flavorless on her tongue. She struggled to chew and swallow the noodles and hunks of chicken that tasted dull and rubbery. She rolled her eyes at the effort it took for her to accomplish each bite. It was taking forever and Thomas shifted around impatiently. "Drink the wine," he suggested, "It will make the food go down easier."

_I doubt that_, Sookie thought, _it's probably poisoned_. _But then again, if they poisoned me, I wouldn't be any use to Russell anymore. And even if they did, it would at least be an end to my suffering._ As with all things in her new life, it didn't seem like she had any choice, so she picked up the cut crystal goblet and downed the wine in a couple gulps.

The wine went straight to her head, making her feel light-headed, and drawing forth the first smile she'd flashed since her imprisonment began. Sookie finished the rest of her meal quickly. Even though she was desperately lonely, she preferred to be momentarily drunk and lonely rather than have to endure Thomas's oppressive company any longer. Thomas seemed to echo the sentiment for as soon as she finished, he wordlessly got up and walked out, leaving the tray behind. Despite her dislike for him, Sookie felt offended by his abrupt departure.

_Jerk_, she thought, _he'd rape me given half the chance, but he cannot manage even a hint of civility or manners_. She shook her head, trying to clear her mind of useless musings about werewolves and their antisocial ways. In spite of the calamitous news she had received earlier, the wine and food almost made her feel whole, but also tired. Sookie yawned in an exaggerated fashion, raising her arms high above her head, allowing the comforter to fall away, since the need for modesty was once again removed. She walked to the bed, dragging the comforter behind her, and curled up in the hopes of enjoying good dreams for once.

...

"Sookie," she heard a familiar voice call softly. For a moment, she was unsure that she had heard her name or if it was just her imagination projecting voices onto she wind that raged outside the protective confines of her room. Holding the sheet to her chest in the pitch black, she sat up. "Who's there?" she questioned the darkness, feeling apprehensive. She felt a heavy body sit down next to her, its weight displaced by the soft feather mattress. Then there was a large hand, its sensitive fingers tracing the contours of her jaw, "Sookie, don't you know me?"

"Erik?" She knew it couldn't be, but the familiar touch was too intoxicating, too intimate to be another. "Who else?" his voice was hushed, soothing, and heavy with longing. The need to cover herself forgotten, she fell into his waiting arms. "I thought you were dead. Russell told me he killed you," she whispered, unbelieving. "I have always been dead," he quipped and she imagined his wry smile as he held her tight.

"Erik," she breathed softly as his lips trailed down from her forehead to fiercely kiss her open mouth. His large hands moved feverishly down the length of her body as he clasped her hard against him. She closed her eyes and melted into the moment as his mouth drifted lower over her breasts and stomach. She gave herself fully over to a sense of relief born of ecstasy. It was a feeling she could not have previously imagined and she soaked in the sensation of his heavy, cold body lying atop hers.

Sookie gasped and sighed as a dizzying kaleidoscope of stars whirled before her eyes, the only light in a darkness so deep that she could not tell if her eyelids were open or shut, and she realized that she did not care. The only thing that mattered was the way his mouth felt between her legs, how his hand gripped her breast, gently squeezing her nipple between his fingers. In that moment, she did not care how release had come, she was simply grateful that it had.

_Somehow, I knew it would all be OK_, she thought dreamily. But her eyes were closed, for when the small lamp was suddenly flipped on, all the tiny pinpoints of light melded together into one blinding flash. It was a shock like breaking the surface of the water after a long dive. Sookie's eyes snapped open to see Russell grinning down at her. Sitting up, she gasped in alarm and pulled the sheet as high up to her neck as the fabric would allow. Russell's grin broadened as he noticed how alluring she looked, in spite of her bruised and battered appearance, with the Battenberg lace trimmed sheet pulled up under her chin.

For a moment, she stared at him blankly, struck dumb with shock, before finding her voice. "What do you want?" Sookie demanded, her voice dripping with venom. She was trying to hide her shock and embarrassment. _Surely, he could not know who and what she had been dreaming of_, she chided herself. But the way he smiled at her made her wonder nonetheless.

She hated herself for being susceptible to such ridiculous and speculative thinking. Although the emotion paled in comparison to how she despised him for making her wonder about all sorts of things she would never have wasted time on in the past. Russell didn't answer immediately, but shook his head at her as if he was delighted by her foolishness. It was amazing to him that her impertinence was still unfazed in the face of her absolute powerlessness. Sookie squirmed uncomfortably in the silence, not sure what to do.

She wondered if it was close to morning, since Russell was attired in a dressing gown and tuxedo shirt he wore open at the neck with a bow tie hanging loose. His neatly pressed black dress slacks barely carried a wrinkle. Sookie speculated on where he might have spent the evening, what occasion would require such formal dress. An image came to her of a fancy party attended only by the beautiful and powerful. Elegant dresses and crystal chandeliers populated the scene in her mind. On one long table, a silver blood fountain flowed as the vampires mixed, mingled, and drank the blood from crystal champagne glasses.

"I don't know. What do you think I want, sweetheart?" his low voice was husky with what Sookie had come to know was male hunger. It sickened her to know that she was the object of his desire. She gulped down hard around the lump that had risen in her throat as her expressive chestnut eyes clouded with fear. He had taken everything from her: Erik, her family, Bon Temps. Every heart wrenching loss she had suffered could in one way or another be traced back to Russell Edgington.

"Here, take what you want and go," she stated flatly and thrust her wrist towards him. In a flash of movement so quick it blurred before her dazed eyes, Russell grabbed her outstretched wrist. He twisted her arm behind her, holding her inches from him. Sookie winced against the pain as his fingers dug into her tender flesh. "It is not for you to offer me what is already mine. Things could be a lot worse for you. If I wished it so, I could have you chained up in the slave quarters until you learn to be a little less, shall we say, disagreeable. After all, I'm sure my guards would enjoy the diversion." Sookie grimaced, unsure which was more distasteful, his words or his nearness. He held her so close that she would have been able to hear his heart beating, if he had one.

She tried to twist her wrist and break his grasp, but he held her fast. It was as if he was trying to impress upon her in action what might be lost in words. Pink shadows of newly formed bruises were beginning to show where his fingers pressed too hard. Then, Sookie had a vision of the implications of his words. She saw herself naked and chained; her pallid, greying skin hanging off a body that was little more than a skeleton littered with unhealed fang marks. There would be no one to protect her from the sadistic attentions of the guards who would come each day as surely as the sun rose in the east.

It was impossible for her to read the mind of a vampire, but she could see her fate written in the cold, solemn cast of his hazel green eyes. An endless procession of heavy, male bodies, stinking of sweat and need, forcing themselves on her exsanguinated, battered body up until the point when any lucid moments she had would be spent praying for an end to it all.

"Why are you doing this?" Sookie asked, her voice trembling with genuine terror. "Because it is what happens next," Russell replied as he tore the sheet from her grasp, exposing Erik's fang hanging from its slim gold chain between her breasts. His eyes roamed over her naked body as he wrapped his other arm around her. "No!" she screamed, her mind quickly giving way to hysteria in the face of this latest turn of events.

Sookie closed her eyes and poured all her remaining will and focus into summoning forth her powers. She visualized the light erupting from her free hand, knocking Russell across the room, and teaching him to keep his hands to himself. But, as she held it toward him, her hand lit only briefly and dimly. Russell had done his work well; held in a melancholy spell of muted twilight, she was only able to invoke a small flicker compared to the raging burst of flame she had previously brought forth. Everything stopped for a brief moment, even the air stilled, as they both absorbed the import of what had just happened.

Momentarily astounded, Russell released her, and Sookie fell back into the mattress, knocked out by the effort. Suddenly, she felt exhausted and filled with despair that her unpredictable powers had failed her. However, never being one to miss an opportunity, Russell recovered quickly and pressed his advantage. He reached out to where she lay dazed among the pillows, grabbed her hips between his two large, manicured hands, and pulled her sprawled legs over the side of the mattress.

"No! Don't do this!" Sookie cried, coming to her senses. Releasing her hips, Russell covered Erik's offending fang with his palm, his fingers pushing down against the soft skin of her bare breast, holding her immobile. The sharp point of the fang threatened to pierce her skin beneath the weight of Russell's steely, preternatural strength. Helpless tears ran down her cheeks as she felt Russell reach between her legs, fumbling with his free hand to unfasten his belt.

Inside her head, it was bedlam; fright, pain, and shame vied with each other in a cascading tumble of emotion that rendered her impotent beyond the single, strangled whimper that escaped her lips. "Do you never shut up?" he asked quietly, exasperation weighing heavy upon him. This was going harder than he had expected. Aghast at his cruelty, Sookie threw her arms up over her face, trying to hide the defeated tears that slid from her eyes as she felt his hand slip under her bottom. _This can't be happening_, she thought desperately.

As she lay prone beneath the weight of Russell's body, Sookie beat at him with hands and fists, kicking the backs of his legs with her feet, but her struggles had no effect except to heighten his excitement. "Be brave, my darling. You are mine. There can be no question about this. Not for you or anyone else, either. Do you understand?" Russell whispered. Her senses overwhelmed, Sookie sobbed brokenly into the crisp, white fabric of his shirt as she felt him begin to move rhythmically within her.

_Please God, save me_, she prayed. But salvation did not come. His will to possess her was as powerful and inevitable as an undertow, dragging her head underwater as she gasped for air, casting her helpless form out into waters too deep and cold to be survived, where sharks lurked silently, patiently waiting to tear her apart.

Russell captured her wrists in his hands, holding her arms above her head as he buried his face in her golden hair. She knew what came next, knew it even before she heard the soft sound of his fangs unsheathing. In the next moment, his long fangs pierced the throbbing artery in her neck. He drank deeply, groaning in pleasure. Sookie squeezed her eyes tight shut, trying to project her soul up and away, free from the feelings of shame and hurt that threatened to engulf her.

After what seemed like an eternity, she felt him shudder in release and move away from her. It was over. Sookie pulled her legs to her chest, curling up in a fetal position, as Russell casually re-adjusted his clothes. There had been no pleasure in it. No flash of white heat, no shooting stars behind her closed eyelids, just the cold, matter-of-fact consummation of their bond.

"Well, my dear, that was lovely," Russell said with a smug, self-satisfied smile as he tossed the comforter over her trembling form. "Now it is time for me to retire. Try to get some sleep, if you can." He seemed unconcerned with the sad hopelessness that hung heavy about her now, so different from the fiery, vivacious pixie she had been before. Sookie was barely aware of him watching her. She was half-dead from blood loss. Her body was wracked with pain from her bruises, the burning bite on her neck, the stinging soreness between her legs.

For a moment, Russell paused to wonder if, after being deprived of so much, she would find the strength to make some peace with her grief. Or maybe she might go mad in order to escape it all. But madness would not detract from her usefulness to him. It was her choice to make, he decided. Sookie heard the soft sound of footsteps, the scraping of the door as it opened, and he was gone. She drew in a deep breath, knowing herself to be safe and alone for a while. Soon enough, the sweet oblivion of sleep overtook her as her body began the work to heal.


	6. Chapter 5

**Thank you to everyone for the positive reviews and comments. It sure means a lot to me to hear your thoughts about this story. In this chapter, Sookie continues to try to negotiate her survival in her bizarre and difficult new world.**

Chapter 5: Counting Flowers on the Wall

FOR MORE THAN A DAY, Sookie slept a deep and dreamless sleep as her body negotiated the most recent trauma it had endured. Nothing broke through the cloak of black oblivion until her dreaming self imagined she smelled a cigar being smoked. The slight smell became a great plume of smoke that hovered above and around her. She lay listless, unafraid, as the mist formed hands that tenderly massaged the firm curves of her body.

In her sleep, she moaned slightly, the sound barely above a whisper in the empty space around her. But then the dream turned ominous, the hands sprouted nails, long and sharp, that ripped and tore at her flesh, leaving great red gashes from which her precious blood spilled out. She lay powerless, paralyzed, as the evil apparition threatened to tear her apart. Only her voice remained and she screamed, trying to dispel the malicious mist with the sound. But all that came out were a few musical notes, variously colored, which dissolved into the grey fog and seemed to lend it further strength. It was going to kill her, she knew it, but there was nothing she could do to stop it.

Suddenly, strong hands grasped her shoulders, shaking her back to reality. "Sookie! Sookie! Wake up now. You're having a nightmare," the familiar voice shouted to her sleeping profile. Sookie's eyes flew open, her body instinctively clenching up as she burst gasping back to life. It took a moment for her eyes to focus, but as the cloudiness faded from her field of vision, she saw Thomas leaning over her, concern and pity etching his features. He was beginning to soften towards her; she could feel it, hear it in his thoughts.

Her beauty and sympathetic nature had inspired not only desire, but also the onset of what small measure of compassion he possessed. It happened that way with all men, given enough time. As she studied him and the changes in his demeanor, she realized she was no longer shy of being naked in his presence. Modesty seemed a fruitless endeavor when he had only ever seen her naked or nearly so. Given the choice, she knew she would prefer him to Russell. _Perhaps if we were lovers, he would help me escape_, she considered.

There was a pregnant pause as his hands gripped her shoulders tighter, slightly kneading the flesh under his fingers. Sookie gave him the slightest smile before, remembering himself and his duty, he released her and backed away from the bed. At the end of the day, she belonged to Russell and it was his duty to protect Russell's interests. He was keenly aware that to give in to temptation would only lead to his death and, most likely, a punishment worse than death for Sookie.

As Thomas retreated, Sookie became aware of Elizabeth sitting in one of the petite antique chairs that was pulled around the side of the bed. Sookie flushed with slight embarrassment, realizing that her attention had been so focused on Thomas that she had not even noticed her maid. But having noticed Elizabeth, it was hard to take her eyes away. She sat perfectly still. It struck Sookie that she looked as perfect and beautifully put together as a porcelain doll. Her emerald eyes rested, bright but unaware, on the copper basin filled with water that rested in her lap.

Elizabeth wore a high-wasted, soft-woven cotton summer dress of Adriatic blue and her feet were bound in a pair of gladiator-style sandals. She looked up then and met Sookie's eyes. Sookie again sensed the intelligence behind her veiled gaze, but looked away quickly, finding the lack of focus in her wide pupils disturbing. It was as if her soul had taken flight, leaving only an exquisite shell, although Sookie knew that was not the truth of it. Elizabeth was simply glamoured, and only sensible to the orders Russell had given her.

As Sookie watched, Elizabeth wrung out a washcloth and pulled the covers back. Sookie lay back on the bed, keenly aware of Thomas watching her from the shadowed corner as Elizabeth bathed her limbs with the fragranced water. She pretended to bask in the attention, trying to play what she could to her advantage. But it was just an act, her limbs felt leaden with exhaustion, and what was left of her blood ran like black poison through her veins.

_What am I doing?_ The question occurred to her tormented mind. _Who have I become? What am I now besides the whore of a king? Someone who is now willing to seduce the wolf who holds me captive? I don't love him. I feel nothing for him, but it is all OK because he might help me? Perhaps it is best that my family thinks I am dead. I would not want them to see me now. I am nothing anymore_, she thought, disgusted with herself.

But even as she cut herself to pieces with blades of shame and regret, the question remained as to whether it was always her destiny to find herself so. To find herself a hollow shell governed only by the most primal and desperate motivations. Maybe there was someone else she could have been, someone who would never have known herself to be so base and coarse.

Elizabeth finished her work, replaced the comforter, and began piling pillows behind Sookie, propping her upright. She left the room and returned soon after with a large, steaming bowl containing a meat broth. Sookie dutifully ate the broth that Elizabeth spoon-fed her, mindful of Thomas keeping watch. When she finished eating, Elizabeth presented her with a glass of water, a large, white pill that Sookie decided must be another multi-vitamin, and something new: a small, round blue pill.

_Valium_, she thought, recognizing the distinct shade and color. She swallowed it gratefully, eager for its mellowing effect. Elizabeth then opened the drawer of the nightstand to produce a small, glass oval that fit neatly in the palm of her hand. Sookie watched with interest as she unscrewed the lid that was nearly indistinguishable from the whole to reveal a creamy, scentless ointment.

Sookie winced as Elizabeth applied the salve with gentle fingers to the throbbing bite marks on her neck. At the same time, she was glad that it was her silent maid who had been chosen to treat her. At least, for the moment, she did not have to endure the cruel touch of the brusque doctor. Soon enough, Elizabeth finished her ministrations. She and Thomas silently exited the room, leaving Sookie alone with only the dim light from the small lamp for company.

_I need a real bath_, she decided. Throwing the covers aside, she swung her legs over the side of the bed. But when she tried to rise, her legs shook violently, unable to support her weight in her weakened condition. She held on to the bed and then to the backs of the chairs as she made her way to the bathroom on wobbly legs. When she reached the door, she fell to all fours and crawled to the tub.

Sookie blasted the hot water into the tub, scarcely tempering it with cold water, and watched dazedly as the steam rose in thick clouds. When the tub was filled, she hoisted herself with shaking arms into the blistering water, not caring that the water burned her sensitive skin, instantly turning her lobster red. A force inside her demanded ablution. The searing pain only seemed to heighten the effect, making her dizzy and momentarily forgetful of all the damage she had sustained. She lay in the water, her mind wandering to a place beyond thought. Then she gave in to her suspended state and allowed sleep to overtake her.

Hours passed by unnoticed as the water cooled and Sookie dreamed of wading waist deep into the white-capped, turquoise waters of the Gulf. An abandoned lighthouse, its great window shattered, stood forlorn and forgotten on the bank, maintaining a blind vigil over the empty sea. A man called her name from the beach, waving his arms, signaling her to come back to shore. She waved back to the stranger who seemed so familiar, but whose face she could not see. It was as if his features had been erased. She stood rooted to the spot, the sand congealed and held her in place like wet concrete, too heavy to move, but she did not care. She felt sad, but was oddly content to let the water hold her in a comforting embrace as a cold wind blew over the top of the waves.

Suddenly, she felt large, strong hands reach under her arms and pull her from the water. Groggily, she opened her eyes as Thomas threw her inert form over his shoulder. It was then that she felt the cold, like tiny icicles stabbing her in a thousand places over her body. "You are nothing but trouble, aren't you?" he asked as she began to shake violently. "I've heard it said," she mumbled through teeth that chattered so hard she wondered if they might all crack and fall from her mouth in little pieces.

_How am I ever going to keep you alive?_ She heard his worried mind shout in the toneless language she had learned to recognize as thoughts not given voice. It was then, as he covered her bare bottom with one hand, grabbing a towel with the other, and carried her back into the room that she recognized the import of what had happened. She had fallen asleep and not awoken as the water turned icy cold around her.

Sookie's breath was rapid and shallow as if the air refused to properly fill her lungs. "Put me down!" she screamed in a voice that came out as barely more than a whisper. Her sluggish brain tried to command her hands to form fists to beat at his back, but her limbs would not cooperate. She caught an image of herself in his mind; her lips turned blue, her skin puffy, and too many shades too pale. Thomas threw her down on the bed, covered her with the towel, and began vigorously rubbing her limbs. "Don't! Stop! I'm fine!" The words fell in barely coherent form from her lips. Her skin burned cold and she protested his attempts to revive her. "You will not die on my watch," she heard him reply, although he seemed to be saying it more to convince himself than to respond to her.

"It hurts. Stop," she begged, "Just let me die." All she wanted was to sleep; to be free from the pain, the ever-present fear, the violent, uncontrollable shivering that felt like her muscles were trying to tear free from her bones. "Never!" Thomas replied in a voice raw with fear. "I will not let you die. Sookie, you have to fight." His voice sounded far away as if he were speaking to her from across a great chasm. "I don't want to fight anymore," she whispered in a voice so quiet only his preternatural abilities allowed him to hear. Desperate, Thomas hastily pulled his shirt off and climbed into the bed next to her. Pulling the covers over them, he hugged her close to the warmth of his body.

In spite of herself, Sookie nestled against him. She drank in the intoxicating heat as his hands moved briskly over her arms, her legs, her back, trying to restore vitality to her limbs. In her mind, she saw his fears, Russell's anger at the news that she had died, the thousand possibilities for how he might take his bloody revenge. "It's not worth it," she heard herself say in a voice both distant and strange, "We are doomed." "Don't talk like that," he said. But she knew her words had struck a chord within him, named a truth too dangerous to be spoken aloud.

As her shivers began to subside, the blood flowed more freely through her veins. Finally, she again became aware of herself more as a person and less as a disembodied spirit trapped in a frozen coil of biting agony. The minutes wore on and she became more acutely aware of the hard muscles of his chest pressed to her back, his breath hot against the back of her neck. The tenor of his touch changed as the urgency imparted by imminent danger began to abate. His hands moved slower over her body, taking in the contours of her form, caressing her with an unhurried deliberateness.

She had no will or care to fight his advances. He wrapped one powerful arm around her waist, and his other hand moved slowly up from her bent knee, over her thigh and the smooth curve of her hip to fondle her naked breast. She moaned softly, her skin sensitive to every nuance of sensation as his rough, calloused fingers clasped the soft flesh and toyed with her nipple, making her ache for more. After the trauma of her latest mishap, her numb, overwhelmed mind was hungry for pleasure in a way she had never known before. It did not matter that his duty lay in keeping her a prisoner, or that crossing the line with him was a dangerous proposition. The only thing that mattered was how the thrill of being touched engulfed her, how the nerves in her skin, laid bare by the cold, were acutely raw and sensitive, ravishing her senses with a delightful intensity.

Her movements were jerky and unsound, but she grasped his hand with hers, moved it lower to the wildly aching center of her desire. _I shouldn't be doing this_, she could hear him thinking, even as his fingers began massaging the pulsing throb between her legs. She wished her muscles responded better, were more coordinated, as she tried to fling her leg over his two bent ones. Her leg flopped, ponderous and dormant, and she grimaced, glad that he could not see her face behind the shroud of golden locks. Surprisingly, for she would have not guessed from his normally gruff demeanor that he would be a skilled or intuitive lover, he followed her awkward cue, and reached down to her knee, pulling her leg over his.

_It has been so long_, Sookie thought, drunk on the roiling waves of sparking electricity that consumed her. And she knew it was not just the imminent climax that had been so long removed, but also the attention focused solely on her. It was validation that she still existed, even if only as a faceless object of desire. _It's enough_, she thought, _it's enough_. Sensing that she was approaching her peak, he released his grip around her waist and held her breast. Her body quaked with an acquittal of pent-up tension so brutal and complete she felt tears fill her eyes and spill down her cheeks.

_He never kissed me, not once_, she realized as he disengaged himself from her, silently retrieving his shirt from the floor, and pulled it back over his head. But she didn't care about the impersonal way he held himself aloof from her. She was happy, fulfilled; at least for the moment, she told herself_. I don't need love, I don't need affection, I've had them and this is where they led me. I can live the rest of my life on my memories of Bill and Erik._

She wanted to believe it, but somewhere deep inside, something whispered that life is long and such reasoning is only convenient to the moment. As Thomas pulled the comforter back over her limp form, devastated by both pleasure and pain, she wanted to say something. Gratitude seemed silly, out of place, and since she did not love him, she stayed silent and closed her eyes until she heard the door click shut.

Sookie napped then, deep but fitful, as sweat poured out of her, soaking the sheets. She woke up when she heard Elizabeth walk in, carrying another tray of food. It was mid-afternoon, Sookie judged by the light pouring in from the outer corridor. She pretended to be asleep and listened to Elizabeth set the tray down and walk back out silently. When she judged the coast to be clear, Sookie raised her head. No Thomas, no Elizabeth, just a meal left for her to eat in relative peace. She pulled herself free from her swaddling of sodden sheets to lean over the foot of the bed. Her stomach growled loudly in anticipation of sustenance while her throat ran dry at the prospect of trying to choke down another meal.

The tray held cottage cheese in a medium sized china bowl with an intricately hand-painted floral design, a ham sandwich, and a glass of apple juice. It was eerie to see a meal put together that was so akin to what she would have packed for a school lunch in better days. The familiarity attracted and repulsed her by equal measure, but hunger won out and she began to eat.

Sookie finished half before she gathered herself back onto the mattress, knees tucked under her as she sat, looking around the empty room. She felt pleased with her effort to sustain, to survive, in spite of all. But as she took in the details of the room, the memories that were beginning to accumulate, a fog seemed to descend over her field of vision. Everything was being filtered through a mist of negativity that she could not shake off. Even as she tried to cling to any semblance of a happy feeling, the emotion fled from her, leaving her frowning with her mind awash in disappointment, uncertainty, and frustration.

_Time to get up_, she decided, hoping that moving around would help her to feel better. Wrapping herself in the comforter once more, she poured herself a glass of water from the ever-present crystal water pitcher and tumblers that were placed on a heavy gold tray on top of the dresser. Her legs still shook slightly, the leaded crystal felt unusually heavy in her hand, reminding her of how weak she still was. But she made her way around the bed to the furniture set before the fireplace.

_Great, what now?_ she thought, realizing that she already felt tired again. Moving through the oppressive atmosphere of her prison was like walking on quicksand. It was a zugzwang that swallowed her energy and gave nothing back. Sookie saw the Shakespeare volume Russell had given her still laying ruined and forgotten on the rug.

She shifted her gaze away; there was nothing she wanted to look at, but especially not that book. Frustration was quickly becoming her constant companion, a living presence like a monster living under the bed, knocking softly at the bed frame, waking her at odd hours. Disturbed, she tore her eyes away from the bed and tried to focus her mind on something in the small room that was not already imbued with some tragic memory.

_Bong, bong, bong, bong_, announced the clock from the hall with its characteristic ponderous echo. _Four in the afternoon_, I have time before dark, she thought, keeping measure between degrees of fear and relief, boredom and anxiety. The worst was never knowing what was coming or when. It made her feel out of control, even as time rushed by in slow motion.

She wondered briefly if Thomas would return to visit her before the vampires roused, but she quickly ruled out the possibility. With the thought came some relief. Despite her loneliness, she had not even begun to unravel how she felt about what happened and was not ready to face him again. A brief smile lit her face for a moment at the idea that she may have taken the first step down the road to beating Russell at his own game. _I have to be careful, do things just right_, she decided. However, the thought that chess had never been her game, and the fact that he had not kissed her was irksome, making her shift her weight uncomfortably in the petite chair.

Unable to cope with the weight of her emotions, the way they spun about in circles, Sookie tried to focus her mind on anything else. Feeling defeated, she thought about sitting in the tub, letting the hours shamelessly slip by under the spell of fluid motion. In the water, it all would seem so distant, like it was happening to someone else. But, now she felt afraid, afraid she would fall asleep again, and also afraid of the feeling that whispered, would it really be so bad?

Making up her mind that the taint of death was not going to make the tub anything to her but what it was, she shed her blanket and walked resolutely into the bathroom. But once inside the more cheerful space, she stared blankly down at the tub. Her thoughts ran untethered in the background like a radio station she was half-listening to, but could not shut off. _Not today_, she decided, turning away and trying to shake the feeling that things were beginning to slip through her fingers again.

Even though she had been trying to avoid looking in the mirror, the traitorous reflection being too much for her, once she caught a glimpse of herself, she could not help but gaze deeply at her changed self. "Mirror, mirror on the wall who is the fairest of them all?" she asked, her voice sour with irony. _Not you anymore, sweetheart_, the answer echoed through her mind.

_I know_, she thought, _how could I have taken it all for granted?_ Without the kiss of the sun, her skin was no more than a pale, mottled sheath for her bones. The dark circles that ringed her eyes, dull and red-rimmed from too many hours spent crying, heightened her sense that she was rapidly deteriorating. _Ohmigod! I look more dead than alive_, she thought, trying to rub some color back into her hollowed-out cheeks.

As she meditated on her appearance and all that had gone awry, she remembered that someone had once told her that it was bad luck to spend too much time in front of the mirror. _People say a lot of things_, she reminded herself, _besides I don't believe in that BS_. Feeling satisfied that she was not going to allow herself to become a superstitious lunatic, she let her mind drift towards an abyss of half-formed, answerless questions until the image blurred before her eyes. All except her mouth, which was held static and rigid, frozen in a firm line, carrying the same joyless tension. _It's all his fault_, she thought, as she tore her eyes away from the tangible specter of all the damage Russell and his wicked obsession had wrought.

Sookie stumbled out of the bathroom feeling far away from center, otherworldly, and she bumped into a chair before plopping down into it. Looking around the room, her eyes seemed most comforted by simply focusing on the wallpaper with its idiosyncratic variety of flowers blooming on the ends of the twining creepers that cascaded down the walls. She wished the flowers bloomed in full color and not a single muted shade of blue-gray edged with silver on an off-white background. Something about that particular shade of blue made her feel unwell, it reminded her of mold growing on bread, and the slight bluish tinge that still lingered on her fingertips.

"Silver...I could definitely use some of that," she mused in a hushed tone. But she could not allow her thoughts to linger on vampires, even when fantasizing about revenge. She had to distance herself from the feeling of being hunted, captured, and preyed upon. Desperate for something to take her mind away from the dark brooding thoughts that haunted her, she concentrated again on the flowers. Long ago, her grandmother had taught her about flowers and their meanings. Gran had explained to Sookie how it was a lost form of poetry from a time before phones and computers. She searched her memory, trying to read the writing on the wall, but the memories she sought remained stubbornly hidden in a swirling mist of emotion.

Frustrated, she looked longingly at the door to her room. Outside the door freedom awaited, and Thomas stood guard, making sure she did not escape. After their brief encounter, she could not help wishing he would come back in, keep her company, make love to her, hand her the key to her release. But the door was resolutely closed, and somehow she knew that his loyalty was not to her. It was all just fantasy spun from threads of aching loneliness.

Needing to distract herself and left as she was with no other options, she began counting. Sookie started with the chrysanthemums, but the way the petals spiraled in on themselves like a nautilus made it her hard to keep her place. _Forty- two_, she decided, after counting several times. The petals of the anemone all seemed to run together too, furling out protectively around the dark center with its light border. Sookie decided to count it as four. Next was the five-petaled oleander, an unlucky number, fitting for such a strongly poisonous flower.

The daffodil, traditional harbinger of spring, looked melancholy in antique blue, its cheerful trumpets unhappily dull. She could almost imagine the flower bursting forth in a vibrant, brazen yellow, but sadly not in her monochromatic world. She mentally added another six to her tally. Finally, there was the amaryllis: a small, star-shaped firework of a flower. _Another six_, she thought, which brought her total to sixty-three. The pattern repeated over and over across the length and breadth of the room. She wasn't sure she could keep track of that many and had no real desire to do so.

_Is this really all that is left to me?_ she thought as she felt tears welling up in her eyes, remembering how her life had once held so much promise. A cool chill of apprehension ran down her spine as she imagined herself, withered and grey, counting and counting, with nothing else to do as her life ebbed away. In her imagination, the final number had long before been reached and verified. Still, she continued on, like Psyche counting grain as penance for her sins against love.

Sookie's head hurt and she decided she did not feel like being awake anymore. She cast another longing glance at the door. _Damn him_, she thought, as she gave up hope of a reprieve from the all-consuming boredom, and flopped back on the bed. Sleep came in stops and starts, the flowers whirling around her mind, teasing her with their lost meanings. At one point, she woke fully enough to recognize the song of the cicadas chirping outside her paneled windows, reminding her that the day was gone and of the dangers night always portended.

**To be continued...**


	7. Chapter 6

**Thank you for the positive reviews and I hope you all have a happy holiday season and a great New Year!**

Chapter 6: Possession

AFTER FALLING INTO A SLEEP untortured by the myriad of nightmares spawned by her chosen fears, Sookie awoke to the warm light of a fire burning in the hearth. As her bleary eyes adjusted, she saw Russell seated in the loveseat, gazing at the fire. She sat up in bed, holding the sheet protectively to her chest, and he turned when he heard the soft rustlings coming from the bed. "Oh, you're awake," he said, smiling amiably. It was as if he could not help being glad to see her.

Sookie felt a cold knot of fear form in her stomach and she trembled slightly, praying he did not see how afraid he had made her. "How long have you been there?" she asked, irritated by his sudden presence. "Not long," he answered casually before returning his gaze to the fire. Time passed in silence as Sookie watched Russell concentrate on the low flames.

Her mind spun around wondering why he had come, why he did not speak, what he had in store for her. She did not know if she could survive being raped again. But, if that was what he had come for, she also knew she could not stop him. Sookie shifted uncomfortably amongst the covers, wishing he would go and leave her in peace, but nothing happened. She started to get the idea that he was waiting for her to do or say something, give him something to respond to. She did not want to give him the satisfaction, so she fell back among the covers, feigning sleep.

The act did not work as she had planned. Not only did he make no move to leave, but she lay in bed, an arm thrown over her eyes thinking of all the ways he had wronged her. "I hate you," she mumbled. She had not meant to say it out loud, but once the words were out, she realized that she did want him to hear. She wanted him to answer for his crimes. Russell pretended like he had not heard her, although Sookie did not believe that he could have missed it. Infuriated, she sat up in bed again and, clutching Erik's fang through the soft cotton sheet, she made up her mind to confront him.

"Did you hear me?" she practically yelled to his back, "I said I hate you! I have always hated you and I always will!" _There, I said it_, she thought, preparing herself for whatever violent, horrible action he might take. Somewhere in the back of her mind it occurred to her that, at heart, she really had not changed at all. She was still capricious, still eager to take the stupidest, most savage course of action she could conceive. It still excited her to see what would happen; to see if her charm, strength, and beauty would continue to sustain her no matter what. But now there existed something new within her, an unnamed dread. It was the knowledge that even she could go too far, and that now there was no one left to save her.

Russell turned his head to look at her, but made no other move towards her, "Yes, I heard you. What exactly would you like for me to do about it, sweetheart? It sounds like your mind is made up," he said, unperturbed. His voice was like honeyed wine. "You can let me go," she responded. Russell laughed quietly to himself, amused by her outburst, and walked the short distance to stand beside the bed. "As previously discussed, my dear, that is not going to happen. You are too important to be left to your own foolish devices out in the world. Besides, I cannot imagine denying myself the incomparable pleasure of your company." He winked, flashed her an impish grin, and she realized he was mocking her.

Sookie felt like her head was going to explode. She had been prepared for a reaction full of volcanic fury, but she had not expected that he simply would not take her seriously. She felt raw, exposed, like she was balanced on the slim blade of a knife. Not knowing what else to do, she plunged ahead, giving her anger and frustration complete reign over her emotions.

"You have ruined me!" she exclaimed. Pulling her knees to her chest, she buried her face in her folded arms, not wanting him to see the frustrated, helpless tears that had begun to well up in her brown eyes. Russell looked down at her, seemingly indifferent to her suffering, although his cunning eyes betrayed a greater wealth of feeling. He took a seat on the bed near her feet and she shrank away from him, refusing to meet his eyes. "And how, pray tell, have I done that?" he asked. His voice was gentle, but still tinged with sarcasm.

Her head shot up. The desire to hide her grief was momentarily forgotten, and she let loose the torrent of emotion that had been building within her. "How have you done that? Really!" she asked, incredulous. "You raped me. You've locked me up, left me alone, sent that awful doctor in to drain me. I never see the sun. I'm ugly now. I look like I'm dead. Hell, my whole family thinks I'm dead, so I guess I might as well be. Better dead than left in this awful room to watch myself rot. And it's all your fault. I hate you!" she cried, tears streaming down her face. She bit down on her bottom lip, nervous about what might come next.

Russell listened patiently to her flood of complaints, but it bored him to no end. He was much more interested in studying her pouty expression, the way the eyelet lace border of the sheet rested in an effortlessly seductive way against her still slightly bronzed skin. "My dear child, you set your feet upon this road long before you ever met me. You are only alive now because of me. But your problem is that you do not see that your gift, as with all gifts, is in equal measure both a blessing and a curse. Have you ever stopped to consider how it would be if you had gone back and tried to resume your life in Bon Temps?

"The reign of chaos and misfortune that befell the ones closest to you before would be nothing compared to what would happen now. Especially considering that the cat is out of the bag regarding who and what you really are. I'm sorry for you, but your fantasy of a normal life was never in the cards for you. And the sooner you come to grips with that truth, the better off you will be. If you really love your family, maybe you should be glad of the relief that your absence has provided them. Perhaps now they can go about the business of their lives spared from the tragedy you inevitably trailed in your wake." He said it all in an eminently reasonable tone that left no room for argument.

Sookie covered her ears. She didn't want to hear it. Sometimes, listening to him talk reminded her of throwing back shots of Black Velvet. The sharp, heady smell of the liquor, the dark amber liquid sliding down her throat, burning all the way down, making her forget what she thought she knew. "You are wrong," she said, shaking her head, "They love me, they would never want to lose me."

"I never said that they did not love you, far from it, I'm sure. I am simply asking you to consider that perhaps the price of loving you was too high for them to bear." He reached over to hold her chin between his fingers, lifting her eyes to meet his. "Besides, who could resist loving you? Wanting you?" His eyes filled with a tenderness she found disconcerting and she flinched violently away from his touch. But he did not let go, squeezing her chin hard, his eyes darkened. "Speaking of which, I wonder, how are you getting on with that guard of yours, Thomas?" Russell released his grip and Sookie blanched. It was the last thing she had expected him to say, but despite being unnerved, she recovered quickly.

"I hate him. Where did you find such an awful brute?" She spat the words back at him as casually as she could manage. "Uh huh," he answered in a measured tone. Clearly, he was not interested in buying what she was trying to sell. "You just hate everyone and everything this evening, don't you, darling?" he asked dryly.

"I warn you, sweetheart, hate will age and make you ugly faster than anything else. There is no point holding on to the past. It is gone, forever gone. Bad memories and regret will fill the air around you like ash, choking the life out of the present." He paused then, allowing his words to sink in. She chanced to wonder if he would never tire of grinding up her illusions for sport, turning them into shiny dust.

"Give me your hand," he said in a voice that was used to giving orders. "No," Sookie responded flatly. She crossed her arms tightly around herself, trying to hide her hands. "I'm not asking," he stated. He was growing cross. His brow furrowed as he gestured with his fingers for her to place her hand in his. Even as she shook her head no, her eyes cast down, he moved quickly, reaching his arms around her to gather her into his lap. The sheet fell away as she futilely struggled against him, "Stop! You've already drained me too much. There's nothing left inside me; I'll die," she cried, desperate to get away from him.

"Quiet," he barked. Unsheathing his fangs, he pushed the sweaty mop of golden strands away from her neck. A moment later, her face contorted in pain and helpless anger as he sunk his fangs into her neck. Her body went limp against him. He held her tight, relishing the feeling of having her naked and submissive in his arms. She could feel his palm against the side of her breast. His fingers pressed hard into her back, in the place where her ribs were beginning to show through her skin like the bars of a cage. Blood ran down from the twin punctures in her neck, smearing red down her neck, between her breasts, leaving dark red stains on the forest green cotton polo shirt he wore.

When he sheathed his fangs, Sookie was barely conscious, and her head lolled drunkenly against his shoulder. "You killed me, you monster," she whispered into his neck. "Not even close, my dear. You are much stronger than you think," he replied. She was barely aware enough to realize that Russell had opened his wrist until he placed it against her mouth. "Drink," he commanded. His voice was soft, seductive, as his blood pumped into her mouth. "No," she gurgled weakly, trying unsuccessfully to spit it back out.

Russell clenched his fist and the blood flowed faster into her mouth, forcing her to swallow. It was a taste like sucking newly minted pennies. _No!_ she cried inwardly, even as she grasped his wrist, drinking deeply, suddenly as desperate for escape as any devoted addict. The blood flowed down her throat to her stomach, racing like fire through her veins, and she heard his voice speaking calmly to her as she drank.

"…Did you know that you can only now see a small fraction of the stars visible in the sky a thousand years ago? It's true. In many ways, that fact reminds me of you and how you only see a tiny fraction of the role your life is destined to play. You are so consumed with fear and doubt. You do not see that it is not I who has ruined you. It is I who has saved you, so that one day hence your destiny may be fulfilled."

_My destiny?_ Sookie thought as she drank in all he would give before he pulled his wrist away. She felt his fingers drift slowly down the arch of her exposed back as his influence exploded through her system. _Done is done_, she realized. Somewhere inside her the Tower burned, voices screamed from the peaked turrets, but she was too high, too powerless, to care. She was his. It was no longer conjecture, it was a fact. Russell laid her gently back amongst the covers. He watched as she writhed and squirmed, moaning as his blood breathed life back into her veins, consuming her with a fiery, visceral desire.

He reached his hand out to touch her, thought better of it, and walked over to the fireplace. Silently, he watched as the fire slowly died down to embers. On the bed, he could feel her burning, the blood awakening a deep well of unsatisfied passion. A part of him was tempted to relieve her elegant suffering. He wanted to hold her in his arms, seduce her, and afterwards tell her the whole truth.

Briefly, he wondered what she would say if she knew that Queen Sophie Anne had sought sanctuary with the King of Texas while she tried to secure an annulment. Sookie's blood was essential to his scheme. He planned to use it to retrieve his foolish wife and, beyond that, to assist in his carefully organized strategy to overthrow the Authority and achieve ultimate power.

Russell sighed, knowing it was only loneliness that compelled him to want to find comfort in sharing his thoughts with someone else. Especially now that he was left with a house full of no one but servants and guards. But he had lived too long to jeopardize everything on the eve of victory. So he looked back to the bed once more, smiling slightly at the knowledge that another important piece of the puzzle had just slid into place, and soundlessly left the room.

...

The Wheel turned gradually, Sookie's battered body healed, and time began to move with a calmer tenor. A day and night passed with little disturbance. The food tray came and went; grilled salmon, veggies, and a glass of red wine. Sookie found her appetite strangely renewed. Everything still seemed tinged with grey, but she breathed easier. Elizabeth came in to change the sheets, looking irritatingly radiant, and Sookie made her way to the bath on legs that no longer shook. Relaxing in the tub, it occurred to her that her superstitions were banished. The only thing she really felt afraid of was closing her eyes. That is when the V-dreams came with a consistent ferocity she had not previously known.

Most of the details eluded her waking mind, but the vestigial remains were all fangs, blood, and sex. Large, cold hands on her bloody skin. Russell held her close in a colossal bed that seemed to Sookie as if it had been hewn and carved out of a single, ancient tree. The dreams were equal parts wonderful and awful. But, even though she knew it was an inevitable consequence of the blood, the dreams left her feeling like a traitor to everything she had once believed true about herself. Sometimes she told him so, but he only laughed and told her that there was no avoiding it, not for someone as special as herself.

There was more he had said about bills coming due, paying the piper, and other rubbish. But she didn't like to think about it overmuch, since doing so made her feel sick to her stomach. He also told her things, things she could never remember, even in part. Secrets whispered softly about truths most mortals never know. She shook her head, trying to clear her mind. Her confused emotions were spun like cobwebs, circling in on themselves, inescapable. She wished for a distraction, anything to take her mind off the new constellation of thoughts and memories she did not want.

When she was confident that enough time had passed for Elizabeth to complete her work, Sookie wrapped a big white cotton towel around herself, set the tub to drain, and ventured back into her room. The room was dim and stale, as was its habit, lit only by the small lamp on the bed stand. There was no one else in the room, which both frustrated and relieved her. She had not seen Thomas since their brief encounter. _Jerk_, she thought, _are all men just creeps? I guess the answer is in the question._

On the plush beige ottoman, there sat a new meal: eggs, pancakes, ham, a glass of orange juice. _At least I won't get scurvy_, Sookie thought, the voice in her head carping and negative. _How does he feature that I am supposed to eat all that food? That would have been a challenge back when I was alive._ But her stomach growled hungrily, which made her smile. In spite of herself, she felt life, the sweet vitality, begin to return after its terrible absence.

As if in answer to her prayers, Elizabeth had left a book and some kind of silken frock at the foot of the bed. Sookie could hardly believe her eyes. _Clothing! Something else to do!_ she thought, momentarily forgetting her dour state of mind and grinning for the first time since her captivity began. She grabbed the soft fabric and let it unfurl before her. It was a long, pearl colored, silk nightgown, slit high up the thigh and iced with lace.

Sookie didn't hesitate; dropping the towel, she slid the beautiful gown over her head. Just the experience of putting on something so lovely made her feel alive again, never mind who had gotten it for her or why. Picking up the book, she saw it was another leather bound volume, this time in worn green, with the same gold-edged, delicate pages. To Kill A Mockingbird, she read, as she walked over to take a seat before the fireplace. Almost immediately, her gaze fell on the scarlet-jacketed Shakespeare volume, which rested on the white marble mantelshelf. Sookie guessed Elizabeth had put it there, but she really did not know for sure, and its presence bothered her.

She rolled her eyes at her own stupidity; the unreasoning pre-occupation with the objects that filled her small world, but she got up anyway. She grabbed the book off the mantel, and the small piece of newspaper, which had lain hidden under the book, floated into the hearth. _Let it burn_, the voice in her head counseled.

For a moment, she considered doing just that. But then she found herself on her knees, plucking the article from where it rested among the ashes. _It's the only picture I have of myself, the only memory I have of when I was happy_, she justified to herself as she stuffed it back in the binding. Just holding the book reminded her of the awful day when she had learned of her presumed death.

She was glad to toss it in the top drawer of the dresser, leaving the ruined book to rest in its red felt-lined coffin. _Maybe someday I'll feel strong enough to look at it again_, she thought. However, underneath it all, as she slammed the drawer shut with a little too much force, she knew she would never want to look at it again.

Everything she did seemed as if she was watching her life filmed and played back in slow motion. She stood before the chest of drawers transfixed on the rich warm wood. Its solidity was comforting, it would protect her bad memories, keep them from sneaking up on her unawares. Looking upward, her hands soaking in the warmth of the wood, she saw what she had missed before. Finally, she could read the writing on the wall.

The amaryllis stood for pride, while the daffodil and anemone, despite being seemingly happy flowers, held only sad messages about the pain of being forsaken in the fires of unrequited love. She remembered that the white chrysanthemum meant truth and the deadly beautiful oleander bespoke beauty and grace. Sighing heavily, she pushed back from the dresser and sat down at the foot of the bed to eat her meal.

"Well, that was helpful," she said quietly, sarcastically. She didn't need to know about flowers and their meanings to get that message from her circumstances. But it was eerie, disturbing, like she had fallen into some sort of karmic petri dish. Her food had cooled and she chewed listlessly, swallowing the tasteless mouthfuls. She felt like the walls were screaming in soundless images about how she had failed, how she deserved exactly what she had gotten.

Her reveries weighed heavy on her mind, making her tired, but she didn't want to sleep again. _I can face life for more than an hour at a time_, she told herself. _I can't sleep forever just because I fucked up. I'm sure if I had it all to do again, I'd do no different._ Lost in thought, she did not realize until it was too late that she had dribbled some of the orange juice on to the front of her nightgown.

_Damn_, she thought, picking up the linen napkin and dabbing at the stain. _God sakes, I ruin everything I touch_, she berated herself. She was only mildly comforted by the notion that she didn't know how much she could ever care about a gift Russell had given her, no matter how fine the gift might be.

After eating most of her meal, Sookie grabbed her new book and sat down on the loveseat to read. It was refreshing to be able to lose herself in a story that was not her own. Before she knew it, the book was halfway done. _Oh no_, she worried, _what am I going to do when this is done?_ She felt torn between her desire to keep reading and the voice in her head, which counseled that it was a better idea to ration her only source of entertainment. Sookie sat in her pretty nightgown, biting her lower lip, trying to find the criteria to decide. All the while wondering how such a trivial matter could now consume her with feelings of uncertainty.

As she sat with the book open in her lap, she heard a key turn in the lock. A moment later, Elizabeth breezed in with her dinner. _Well, that settles it_, Sookie thought, marking her page with the slim white ribbon attached to the binding, and set the book aside. The new tray contained a generous portion of spaghetti and meatballs, garlic bread, another glass of red wine. Sookie's mouth watered at the aroma.

_If I keep eating like this I'm going to get fat_, she thought ironically. She ran her hands over ribs that still stuck out too far under skin that was too thin. She wondered how much her lot would change if now that she was eating more, but still had no way to exercise, she began to closer resemble a beached whale than her usual slim self. But as soon as the idea occurred to her she dismissed it. She could not imagine letting herself get fat, even if it would make her less sexually desirable.

When Elizabeth left with the old tray, Sookie got up and hurriedly grabbed the new tray, bringing it to where she had been sitting. She had barely gotten herself re-settled when Elizabeth walked back in. Sookie ate, her back to Elizabeth, as the maid changed her sheets and ran a dusting rag over the polished wood surfaces. In her confinement, Sookie had become a slow eater. She conscientiously savored her meal, doing her best to ignore the maid as well as the annoying music in her head, until she finally completed her duties and left.

When she finished eating, Sookie stretched her arms high and wide over her head, feeling momentarily content. _Today was not so bad_, she noted. But as soon as the thought caught some traction, she couldn't help thinking about how pathetic her definition of a halfway decent day had become. The feeling was coupled with the sense that her bad luck was bound to return. Not wanting to dwell in her anxious thoughts and having already done what she could to occupy herself for the day, Sookie decided to lie down and let the wine work its magic in her dreams.

…

_Bong, bong_, the great clock chimed amid the chorus of night insects, waking Sookie from a sound sleep. As if on cue, the door to her room abruptly swung open. Dr. Koze strode in, her wild red curls framed in silhouette by the light pouring in from the hall. The ominous black medical bag was clenched tightly in her right hand.

The doctor snapped on the tall lamp near the fireplace, regarding Sookie suspiciously with narrowed eyes, her mouth held in a firm line. As usual, she was dressed impeccably, this time in a robin's egg blue silk blouse and tailored light gray slacks. _I would kill for those shoes_, Sookie thought as she admired the doctor's expensive high-heeled strappy suede sandals. It just didn't seem fair; especially since she could hardly remember the last time she'd even worn shoes.

_At least I'm not naked this time, just the next thing to it_, Sookie thought, smirking. The doctor misread her expression and her sharp features clouded with suspicion. "You make trouble for me again?" she snapped as she rounded the side of the bed. Sookie swallowed hard and shook her head. She didn't want to admit to herself that she was afraid of the doctor. She decided to chalk the knot in her stomach up to frustration. _Clearly, I am not allowed to have anything resembling a good day without paying some kind of price for it_.

Sookie sat up in bed as the doctor rummaged in her bag. She carefully removed the implements needed to collect Sookie's priceless blood and laid those items on the nightstand. Then, the doctor held out her hand. Her long nails had been re-done in a medium shade of pink, and she gestured for Sookie's arm. Although she did not want to anger the doctor, Sookie sat motionless. Suddenly, she was consumed with the recent memory of Russell reaching for her in the same way. The doctor frowned and snapped her fingers impatiently.

Reluctantly, Sookie placed her thin wrist in the doctor's hand, but she could not stop her arm from shaking. The doctor's fingers closed tightly around her wrist. Sookie couldn't help but think that she now knew how a mouse must feel when grasped in the unforgiving talons of an eagle. "You afraid of me now?" Dr. Koze asked. Her black eyes glinted with pleasure from behind the veil of her heavily mascaraed lashes. "No," Sookie lied as she looked down at the two bumps her feet made under the covers. "Stupid girl, you should be. But I not hurt you too bad...this time," the doctor quipped, readying the needle with her free hand.

"You do, and Russell will have you staked," Sookie shot back, meeting the doctor's icy gaze as bravely as she could manage. The doctor plunged the needle deep into Sookie's arm and she winced, her face momentarily contorting in pain. Dr. Koze smiled, "Who give you that? Russell?" she asked, indicating Sookie's new nightgown with a slight nod of her head. The blood began to fill the plastic bag and Sookie grimaced at the doctor's implication.

"I'm not his whore, if that's what you're getting at," Sookie replied a little too defensively. Suddenly self-conscious, she realized how she must look. "No, no. Of course not. You innocent girl." Dr. Koze threw her head back and laughed. It was an evil, cackling sound that reminded Sookie of the sound made by some of the better animatronic Halloween decorations she had seen. Still, it sent chills racing up and down her spine. "You know, you're ugly when you laugh," Sookie snapped defiantly. A slight smile played at the corners of her mouth, in spite of her fear.

When the blood bag was full, the doctor ripped the needle from Sookie's exposed vein as brutally as she had inserted it. Her frown deepened, making deep lines around the corners of her mouth. After safely depositing the bag and tools back in her bag, she slapped Sookie hard across the cheek. The doctor had moved so quickly that Sookie had no chance to dodge the blow. Dazed, she fell back, and barely registered the doctor's cruel voice, "There. That teach you some manners," she said before getting up and walking out of the room.

Sookie's head swam. The sensation was the same as the time she had misjudged a dive at the county pool and done a complete somersault underwater before finding the surface. That experience had left her rattled and she had not felt right for a couple of days afterwards. A new bruise began to darken and swell on her cheek, destroying her newly found visage of improved health. The pounding in her head was almost unbearable. She desperately wished she had access to her medicine cabinet at home for some Advil, if nothing else.

Feeling defeated and ill, Sookie curled up in a fetal position and closed her eyes. Sleep eluded her for a long time as her mind spun through half-formed, tragic images characterized by overwhelming sensations of fear, regret, and shame. Once again, the question she feared more than any other sprang back up from the safe confines of her subconscious to plague her waking mind. _How much longer can I go on like this?_ Tears rolled down her cheeks as she tried to wrap her mind around the finality of the only conclusion available. It didn't really matter; either way, she faced a death sentence. It was just a question of how protracted the uncertain time frame would be and how far her depression would drive her towards madness in that time.

_Oh well, no one gets out alive anyway_, she tried to comfort herself, _but at least most get to see the sun_. Thoughts of the sun made the tears slip from her eyes with renewed vigor. She realized that she missed the sun and days spent sunbathing outside her family home more than she missed Bill, Erik, her friends, or family. In that heart-wrenching moment, Sookie realized that she loved being alive more than anything else. For her to be denied sunlight was to every day feel something irreplaceable drained away. The will to live was a finite well she was forced to drink from in her efforts to stay alive and sane. Finally, exhausted and pained beyond measure, she found some respite from her oppressively melancholy frame of mind in the relatively safe embrace of slumber.

**To be continued...**


	8. Chapter 7

**Thank you again for all the alerts and reviews! They really make my day! This is the final chapter, so I hope you enjoy it.**

Chapter 7: The Garden

SOOKIE SLEPT HARD and dreamlessly until her door opened the next morning and Elizabeth walked in with her breakfast tray. The smell of the biscuits and sausage gravy brought her to her senses much more than her maid's customarily silent way of walking and carrying out her duties. Sookie chanced to wonder how much of Elizabeth's strangely quiet disposition was due to the glamouring and how much was just her own practiced mannerisms. Either way, she grudgingly had to admit to herself that she found the quality attractive_. Perhaps in another life we could have been friends, but never in this one_, she decided.

She watched the maid set the tray down and begin to clear the old one away.

Her cheek hurt and she ran her fingers lightly over the warm, swollen skin. The bruise was going to be a doozy and Sookie was not looking forward to looking in the mirror. Although, she was a little morbidly curious to see what kind of patchwork of ugly colors were beginning to bloom on her face. As the maid turned to leave, Sookie crawled out from under the covers and began to eat her breakfast.

This morning, the cook had included a strong cup of coffee and cream in addition to her normal glass of juice, and Sookie delighted in the familiar, much missed taste. _What a treat_, she thought, as she hungrily tore into her meal. Her despair had begun to dissipate but, in its place, loneliness settled in like a dense fog. She was almost sorry that her maid was gone, leaving her alone again. Although she resented Elizabeth as part of the machine that held her hostage, when she stopped to think about it, a nascent understanding of Elizabeth's situation began to form.

In her own way, Elizabeth was just as much of a victim as Sookie. In fact, it occurred to Sookie, that her maid was the person in the world with whom she had the most in common. Both of them were cut off from other people and normal life. While it was true that Elizabeth had clothes and freedom of movement; she was also a servant who was denied access to her own mind in order to keep Sookie ignorant of any details that might make an escape attempt more likely.

Sookie was surprised when Elizabeth came back in the room, and she flashed the maid a guilty smile in spite of herself. _What am I doing?_ Sookie thought, returning her attention to her meal. _She's barely aware I'm here and besides, we're not friends_. But to Sookie's surprise, instead of cleaning supplies or linens, Elizabeth held in her arms more gifts, which she unloaded on the bed. Losing all interest in her meal, Sookie began eagerly picking through the small pile: a white linen sundress, knee length and empire waisted with narrow straps, an expensive Olga bra and underwear in a neutral beige, and two new books.

Sookie also noted what had not been included: no shoes, no jewelry, nothing she could possibly use to hurt herself. _Not unless I want to hang myself with my bra strap!_ she thought, fiddling with the fang that hung around her neck. _Oh well_, she shrugged and turned her attention to the books. Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, she read, smiling, hardly able to contain her delight. Sookie was so absorbed with her new treasures that she barely noticed that Elizabeth still stood near the bed at a polite reserve.

She also did not notice that Elizabeth had failed to close and lock the door behind her, which was her custom, until an unfamiliar werewolf walked into the room. "My name is Kelly," the lanky, blonde stranger introduced himself. Sookie just looked astonished at him, and was momentarily at a loss for words. Besides, it hardly seemed necessary that she introduce herself. "Where is Thomas?" she blurted out. The words seemed to fall out of her mouth before she had time to ponder the wisdom of such a question.

Kelly ran his fingers over his goatee thoughtfully. A bemused smile lit his pleasant face as he thought about his response. "I don't know really. Thomas has other duties. But, the important thing is that I am your guard and I have good news for you." _Good news? For me?_ Sookie thought. She was as shocked by his words as she had been by his appearance. "Yes, good news," he replied with a broad, open grin that Sookie could not help but like.

There was something different about this werewolf with his bright blue eyes and easygoing manner. Suddenly, she knew what it was; he was gay. Not having encountered a gay member of the werewolf community before, she understood why it was a bit of a shock. Immediately, she also understood why she instinctively felt more comfortable around him. At the same time, it answered the riddle of what had happened to Thomas. Clearly, Russell felt more comfortable with her in the presence of someone who would not feel the temptation to take advantage of his position in the daylight hours the way Thomas had.

Sookie looked inside his head, but in spite of his mild, friendly manner, his mind was nonetheless as guarded as any werewolf she had come upon. The impression of cobwebs spun of steel, emanating shades of red, black, and grey, overwhelmed her senses. The brief effort pained her mind as if she were getting caught on great, barbed hooks. She disengaged her attempts to read his mind, deciding that it was definitely a no-fly zone.

Kelly stood smiling, waiting patiently for her attention to focus back on him. Sookie had the distinct impression that he knew exactly what she was, what she had just been up to, and was pleased with the failure of the attempt. "As I was saying, beginning today, you are allowed to go outside for one hour a day in the company of your maid and myself," he said, clearly enjoying the way her mouth fell open at the news. "So, go change into your new clothes, unless you'd rather wait to begin until tomorrow."

"No," Sookie protested, "I'll be ready in just a minute." Hurriedly, she gathered the clothes and rushed into the bathroom to change. Stripping off the stained nightgown, she pulled on her new clothes. She did not pause to appreciate the feeling of having something new to wear, much less things that were so nice. She felt consumed with a rush of worry that when she returned to the room, she would have missed her chance. Or, worse, be confronted with the reality that in her loneliness she had just imagined the whole thing.

Sookie burst out of the bathroom in a rush, having left her new nightgown in a heap on the floor. "Ready?" Kelly asked. Sookie merely nodded in response, scarcely believing her good fortune. As they walked down the long corridor, Sookie was struck by how irreversibly her life had changed. _Allowed outside only under guard_, she mused, _only in hell could such a thing be normal_. She kept her pace a polite distance behind Kelly's black clad form and Elizabeth trailed a few steps behind her.

As they left the inner corridor and approached the staircase, Sookie was barely able to contain her excitement as she glimpsed the first rays of sunlight she had seen since her capture. It was all she could do to stop herself from pushing past Kelly, throwing open the door, and running out into the intoxicatingly bright morning. But, she knew that would be a mistake that could potentially cost her any opportunity to ever see the sun again. _I have to be patient and appear trustworthy_, she thought as she walked down the staircase. _It is the best way to one day find the chance to escape this terrible place._

Kelly paused briefly by the door, and Sookie looked up at him expectantly with her pleading brown doe eyes, holding her breath in anxious anticipation. She was startled, standing so near to him, how much taller than she he was. His long, thin frame did not lend itself towards making him seem like a large man, but suddenly she felt small and very aware that he could physically overpower her with not much effort.

A moment later, he unlatched and opened the door. Sookie stumbled out onto the wide porch, her sun-starved eyes nearly blinded by the warm, radiant light. The incandescent brightness overpowered her senses and she leaned against one of the white stone colonnades for support. The hot, humid air wrapped around her like a warm blanket, temporarily choking out the memory of the cool, dismal air of her usual surroundings.

Although she had always been skeptical of the stories, she could not help but relate to the tales of near-death experiences she had heard. _It makes a certain amount of sense_, she reasoned, as her eyes slowly adjusted to the light, having felt dead or near to it as much as she had since her captivity began. She had not realized how deep and wide a chasm had been torn through her until confronted by the sun's healing rays. Inside her head, she said a quick prayer, thanking God for this small moment of redemption.

The red bricks of the steps, having baked in the unrelenting sun, threatened to burn the soles of Sookie's feet as she lowered herself to sit. _Funny_, she thought, but the scorching bricks didn't bother her after the first couple minutes. _I must be getting tougher_, and she smiled. A little pain let her know that it really was happening, and that she was not in the midst of another amazingly visceral waking dream. Elizabeth took a seat on the steps beside her, while tow-headed Kelly hung back, leaning his weight against the bricks between the grand door and one of the arched windows.

Sookie idly smoothed the skirt of her new linen summer dress over her knees, hoping that she would not find the back of her new frock smudged with dirt when she went back inside. A quick glance at the porch showed that it, as well as everything else she had encountered in the mansion, was conscientiously cleaned and attended to. Suddenly, she was seized with a memory of her grandmother sweeping the porch of her family home and explaining that a swept porch invited good luck. _Not so much for me_, Sookie audibly snorted in derision. She did not want to muse too much on the mansion given the temporary opportunity she had to turn her back on it.

It occurred to Sookie, as she basked in the sunlight, allowing her head to roll back contentedly, exposing the graceful arch of her throat as the waves of her long, blond hair grazed the ground behind her, that she and Elizabeth could be anyone, anywhere. Sookie felt free to let her imagination wander. She featured that she and Elizabeth, who was dressed in leather wedge sandals, fitted medium-blue wash jeans, and a shamrock green t-shirt with the word Jackson scribbled across her breasts in hand-scrolled letters (she was sure the color would make Elizabeth's eyes as elementally luminous as cat's eye gemstones if, thankfully, they were not hidden behind her Dior sunglasses, which Sookie knew she would have been tempted to take for herself, if not for the irksome presence of her guard), were just friends, hanging out on the porch, enjoying the outdoors on some random sunny afternoon.

She could almost fool herself into believing it, never mind the energy it took to keep reality at bay. All she needed was a tall glass of iced tea, cool and sweating, to complete the illusion. _Pity! Too bad there is no butler_, she thought, letting herself get carried away by her slight taste of freedom. As her eyes steadily adjusted to the sunlight, she took in the beautifully manicured grounds: the verdant green of the trees, how the sky was a vibrant shade of periwinkle broken only by billowy, white clouds. She tried to guess at the shapes, anything to keep her mind from tumbling back to the reality that she was a prisoner on this splendid plantation.

The ever-present music in Elizabeth's mind began to intrude more and more on Sookie's silent reverie. It was all heartache and loss, as if the strings of the harp cried more than sang. Sookie felt bothered to no end by the sad and dismal music, making it increasingly difficult for her to shut it out and focus on her fantasy of being someone else, someone normal.

She had the rest of the day, the rest of eternity, near as she could tell, to spend in the gloom contemplating how lonely and depressing was her situation. As if he had read her thoughts rather than the other way around, it was then that she felt a tap on her shoulder and looked up to see Kelly smiling down at her. His teeth were dazzlingly white, if not a bit crooked, and despite knowing what he was going to say next, Sookie breathed easier around him.

"Time's up," he said, noting the way she tensed at the words. He felt sorry for her in that moment. It was hard not to, but he had a job to do. Ultimately, he figured that fair or not, her karma was her own business. He was relieved when she got to her feet without complaint, dusted herself off, and obediently followed him back inside, Elizabeth following a few paces behind. There was no reason Sookie could think of to try and fight. She would not get far barefoot. She would only jeopardize the one good thing she had to look forward to each day.

"Tomorrow's another day," he said amiably as he ushered her back into the room and locked the door behind her. Sookie looked around the room, dismayed to find herself imprisoned again with the same old problems. _How do I fill the hours? What will nightfall bring? At least, I have some new books to read and I don't have to wander around naked_, she thought, barely comforted, but grateful for the small boons of fortune that helped the hours to pass more easily and uneventfully.

Another day passed into night, and another v-fueled dream swelled her sleeping consciousness. Her dreaming self awoke under the covers of the immense bed in Russell's chamber with the eerie sensation that accompanied her lucid dreams. The large chamber was lit with a dozen or more candles held by ornate gold candelabrums. Sookie was chagrined to discover that she was naked under the high thread count Egyptian cotton sheets. She held the heavy comforter with its intricate pattern of gold and green against a burgundy backdrop to cover herself. She sat up; feeling bewildered, but then fell back against the pile of large pillows. _Too many pillows_, she thought, snuggling in amongst them, noting that in a normal size bed there would not be enough room for anyone to sleep.

She did not see Russell, but she felt that he must be close by. She regretted not having the pink cotton nightgown that had arrived with her dinner. A note instructing her to let Kelly know if there was anything she needed that had not already been provided had accompanied it. Sookie had gone to sleep feeling more content than she had in a long time. But, as she looked around the room, littered with ornate baroque furniture, she knew the feeling had been too good to be true.

It was then that she saw him. Russell was sitting in a large chair facing a roaring fire in a hearth almost big enough for her to stand in. As if he sensed her watching him, he got up from his chair. He was wearing only a pair of black silk pajama bottoms and slippers. He walked across the chamber to seat himself at the foot of the bed. Sookie instinctively shrank back, unsure of what to expect next. She was still afraid of him. But even though she despised herself for it, despised her own inconstant weakness, she was aware that her fear was now tempered by the intoxicating feeling that came from being desired by someone so powerful.

"Well, Miss Stackhouse, how are you enjoying your time outside?" he began conversationally, if not a bit formally. Sookie was shocked; he wanted to talk, wanted to know how she felt about something. She had not expected it. If anything, she imagined that the only reason he would pull her dreaming self to him would be to ravish her once again. After so many dreams, her revulsion at the idea of his body grinding against her as she lay beneath him had lessened. However, she was not ready to welcome his attentions with open arms. But, as much as she hated to admit it, even to the darkest corners of her memory, in his arms, she felt a sense of safety and security she had never known anywhere else.

"It would be better if I wasn't kept on a timer," she replied haughtily. She lifted her chin to gaze at the fire as she ran a hand through her tousled locks. Russell smiled wide, loving her turn as the prideful temptress who felt she was too good for his charity. He leaned back against one of the thick spiral posts that held the massive canopy aloft. He hooked the heel of one foot on the box spring and folded his hands casually in his lap. "One step at a time, my dear. The seas do not yet part on your say-so," he replied.

"Does that mean that one day they will?" she asked coquettishly, allowing the comforter to slip from her grasp and expose her breasts to his view. Even her dreaming self knew it was a blatant and slutty thing to do. But, she reasoned, he had seen her naked so many times before, it hardly mattered. And, she was learning that she was a survivor, which did not always leave much room for pride; especially, in the face of the things she coveted the most: the sun and her freedom.

"Maybe," he said, seemingly unimpressed. However, she could see his eyes light from within, even though he still made no move towards her. "I know you care for me. Don't you want me to be happy? I can't imagine spending the rest of my life cooped up in that room. I'll go mad," her voice had begun to quake a little. Her bottom lip trembled. She didn't like naming her fears, especially to him. "So you'll go mad, you wouldn't be the first," he replied, bored, toying with her. Sookie's cheeks flushed scarlet. She felt frustrated and ashamed that she had abased herself for no gain. "You're a monster!" she spat back at him. She pulled herself into a ball and laid her head on her knees, defeated.

"Perhaps so. I've never pretended otherwise." He sounded so eminently reasonable about the whole thing that she just wanted to haul off and punch him in the face. "And you never think about others? And I guess I mean nothing to you either? You only care about having my blood," she pouted, refusing to meet his eyes. She'd never felt so small and suddenly she wished she could just disappear altogether.

"I think about others. Well, sometimes, when it is convenient to my purpose," he replied flatly. Not that he would let her see it, but inside, he was immensely enjoying this game of cat and mouse. Sookie's head shot up, and a defiant fire lit her brown eyes. She sat up straight, not caring to play coy with the comforter anymore, and pulled her hair away from her neck. "Fine, then drink me and have done with it. If all I have ever been to anyone is a means to an end, just a refreshing fairy cocktail, then I would rather die than live alone in a prison knowing that something like that is true." She was being melodramatic, but he had hit a nerve, a deep-seated insecurity that she had not wanted to confront.

Russell's fangs unsheathed. Unable to control his desire for her anymore, he moved quickly to where she was nestled in the pillows, and pulled her into his arms. As he held her tightly against his chest, she heard him whisper into her ear, "You don't give the orders here, my darling. You are mine. If anyone tries to harm you, including yourself, I will protect you. If you try to run away, I will find you. You will not die. I will not allow it." He kissed her forehead and she was keenly aware of his fingers pressing into her thigh.

"Enjoy your time in the sun. Try to find a reason to smile once in a while. You shall have everything you want and need. You have paid your penance for the evil you have done, but freedom is not a part of the deal." She looked up at him imploringly then, but he continued on. "And it is not just I who holds you. It is your nature, your gift. The very thing that makes you so special is also that which holds you in bondage. In this world, freedom for you cannot help but lead to your demise, so it has fallen to me to protect you. Not that I am complaining. No one else shall ever have you as long as I am around." His voice was gentle, hypnotic, and he smoothed her hair back as he spoke.

It did not occur to her to struggle against him because somewhere deep inside, she knew he was right. The tragedies she had endured had proved to her that her fate could be much worse. "I will let you in on a secret, my love, we are all of us trapped. Either by our nature or the choices we make, no one is truly free. It is only an illusion, an oasis in the desert, a dream that keeps us moving forward when otherwise we would fall over dead from thirst and despair. In the end, the lucky ones, those who are gifted, brave, strong, and wise, they maybe get to choose their prisons. The rest are merely pawns with no real power to decide, although they may pretend otherwise."

His monologue finished, he flipped her hair back, away from the juicy, throbbing artery in her neck. Russell bit down hard, and Sookie screamed in pain, only to awake in the next moment gasping, safely restored to the confines of her own room. She was shaken up by the dream, but as she listened to the great clock announce that it was five, she wondered, _dusk or dawn? Dawn_, she decided, feeling okay to sleep longer, free from the threat of vampires and unsettling v-dreams.

Elizabeth and her morning meal arrived on cue a few hours later. Oatmeal with milk and brown sugar, fruit salad with oranges, apples, strawberries, and bananas cut small and mixed together, another strong cup of black coffee with a small container of cream, and, best of all, more clothes. Sookie practically tore the pile of clothes that the tray was balanced on out of Elizabeth's hands. But she contained the impulse until the tray had been deposited in its customary place.

She was delighted to find more lingerie, a pair of designer jeans that had been carefully distressed and strategically shredded, and a pale blue cotton button down shirt with navy piping. _It's like every day is Christmas now_, she thought, thrilled with her new clothes. Then she looked around. _Yeah_, _a never can escape the memory of my own regrets sort of terrible Christmas. And the clothes are just my payment for being Russell's whore, _suddenly feeling disgusted with herself and her momentary excitement.

With effort, she pulled herself out of that frame of mind, purposefully blinding herself to her surroundings and only focusing on her presents and breakfast. Sookie was so wrapped up in her new clothes, she hadn't even noticed Kelly. He had the very un-werewolf like ability to just blend into the wallpaper. She flushed, feeling a little self-conscious at having been so unobservant while standing around in her nightgown. "It's raining. Do you still want to go outside today?" he asked.

Sookie looked at him like he was nuts. Clearly, he'd never been locked up and drained for a long period of time. "Absolutely," she replied, giving him a look that communicated that she thought it was a dumb question, even if she did refrain from saying as much. "OK, when you've eaten and changed, knock on the door and we'll go out then," he replied, unperturbed, but bored. At least that is what Sookie guessed by the way he held his lips in a thin line.

"Fine," she replied, throwing her dirty clothes off the back of the loveseat, so she could sit. He turned to leave and Sookie remembered the note. "Kelly?" she asked. "Yeah," he responded, turning to face her. "I'm going to need a hamper," she said. The request sounded a little high-handed, but it seemed like a reasonable enough thing to ask for. Despite his more agreeable nature, she still had no interest in engaging him in any conversation beyond what was necessary and he seemed to feel the same. He nodded, looking nonplussed. Obviously, the note hadn't been his idea, and he left the room without another word and Elizabeth not far behind.

A short time later, having finished breakfast and admired how well her new clothes fit, Sookie collected her laundry. With the exception of the pink nightgown, from which she figured she could safely get another night's use, she stashed it all in a corner of the room. Feeling satisfied, she knocked on the door to find Kelly standing at his post and Elizabeth seated on a slim, decorative green velvet chaise lounge opposite the door. Wordlessly, Sookie followed Kelly's lead with Elizabeth trailing behind her.

Sookie did not feel near as anxious as she had the day before. For the first time, she was actually able to admire the artwork adorning the walls. She did not have the erudite vocabulary, hard-earned education, or meticulously cultivated sensibilities to have much idea about what she was looking at. But she knew what she liked and what she didn't and felt that was enough. Besides, the people she had known who went about like they knew more about that sort of thing than others seemed to treat most everything that crossed their path with a snooty disdain that she felt was a turn off. Not that it mattered much in her current situation. She could like the paintings or not as she saw fit. There was no one around to either agree or argue with her.

Kelly hadn't been kidding about the rain, Sookie noted as they made their way down the staircase. The foyer was dimly lit by a poor grey light. She could hear the rain thundering down on the house as it fell in sheets from the heavens. Kelly opened the door and Sookie found it hard to catch her breath. The torrent of water falling from the steel-gray sky beat the earth hard, raising a mist so heavy that it practically choked the oxygen out of the atmosphere. But, fresh air was fresh air, even if it was the sodden and damp variety that would better suit a fish. Sookie was not going to be denied her time outside, even if the sky opened up and began raining fire.

It was a big storm and the unlikely trio huddled under the scant protection of the eaves as the rain found a way to fall sideways or jump up high enough from the ground to soak their clothes. As they silently cloistered next to the house, thunder rent the sky, and lightning flashed madly, its eerie resonance turning the air faintly metallic. Sookie was shocked to see Elizabeth pull a pack of American Spirit cigarettes from the pocket of the grey cotton hooded jacket she wore over a white cotton t-shirt of stretch cotton and a pair of dark wash cuffed, wide leg jeans, and light one up. Sookie had no idea that Elizabeth smoked. Suddenly, she didn't seem nearly so perfect and enviable.

Kelly gave Sookie a pointed look that clearly communicated that he was sick of getting wet while Elizabeth smoked and Sookie watched the storm. Sookie did her best to ignore him. Wet or not, she was not going back inside a minute before she absolutely had to. But knowing that she didn't have much time left took the sweetness from the moment. She tried to just focus on the way the air smelled, how the rain obscured her view, making everything seem a little unreal, like they were in a snow globe that had been thoroughly shaken.

Elizabeth exhaled a puff of smoke in Sookie's direction and she wrinkled her nose at the sour, pungent smell. Sookie looked over at her maid, knowing it was ridiculous, but wondering if she had done it on purpose. As soon as she opened her mind to the music playing in Elizabeth's mind, she suddenly got a glimpse of Elizabeth's memories. What she saw was like a series of flashcards that appeared and were just as quickly gone.

Sookie lost all interest in the storm as she gawked at her maid, but she was once again just an empty shell. The experience reminded her of the brief clearing of a ponderous mist that moments later settled back in twice as thick. Sookie could not help but see her differently, as a person, which is the first time she realized that she had only ever regarded Elizabeth as a brand of mindless zombie. She almost jumped when Kelly laid his hand on her shoulder. "Time's up," he announced. Sookie had been expecting it, so she didn't bother to try to argue. Besides, she was also tired of getting wet and wind blown. Elizabeth dropped the partially smoked cigarette and crushed it out with the sole of her sandal.

For the first time, she was almost relieved when Kelly hurriedly ushered her back into her room. Sookie figured he must be as eager to be out of his wet clothes as she was. Her mind was swimming with the images she had caught from Elizabeth's mind. She needed solitude to properly unpack them; to try to figure out if they meant anything to her beyond their value as a distraction from her own thoughts. Elizabeth carried the old tray out and Sookie busied herself with peeling off her wet clothes and laying them over the side of the tub to dry. Not having anything else that was clean, she just changed back into her cozy pink nightgown.

Flopping onto her stomach on the bed, she closed her eyes to meditate on what she had seen. Elizabeth had worked at Fangtasia. That much was clear and Sookie guessed she had been a cocktail waitress. _I bet she did good on tips_, Sookie thought, not exactly pleased by the idea. She did not know how long Elizabeth had been there, and no other details about her employment were clear. Sookie figured it could not have been too long, since she had never noticed Elizabeth there when she had frequented the club. _Maybe Erik tried to hide her from me_, she thought, feeling a little paranoid. She did not at all like the fact that Elizabeth and Erik had known each other, not with his reputation for seducing beautiful women.

Sookie tried to focus on the facts of what she had seen, leaving idle speculation about things that no longer mattered aside. She rubbed her temples as she concentrated. The next thing that was clear was that Russell had noticed Elizabeth at the club. It was no more than a momentary glimpse of him passing through, looking straight at her, and smiling. After that, she had seen a distraught Erik handing Elizabeth a fistful of money, explaining that she had been sold, and was not to return to the club. Sookie smiled, she knew then that there was no way that Elizabeth could have meant anything to Erik. It made her happy to know that the only woman who had ever melted his heart was herself.

It seemed to Sookie that after Elizabeth left the club, she pretty much just hung around her apartment, waiting, keeping busy, anxiously watching the money run out. At some point, two black clad guards, (Sookie didn't get a clear picture of their faces, but judging by their hulking builds one of them could have easily been Thomas), showed up at Elizabeth's door. From there, it seemed that she had thrown a few things in a bag and been taken to the mansion. Everything was hazy, and Sookie had to fill in some of the blanks. The mental slideshow had been so unexpected and had gone by so quick, that it was giving her a headache to try and reconstruct her memory of such a brief, but potent experience.

Elizabeth's room in the mansion was large, opulently decorated in a vivid flower motif against a backdrop of gold trim and ivory upholstery. Sookie saw clearly Elizabeth sitting in one of the chairs, smoking, and looking out (Sookie couldn't believe it) a large bank of uncovered windows. The image, with the exception of the smoking, looked like a picture from Better Homes and Gardens.

Stunned, Sookie rocked back on her heels, which practically sank into the billowy feather mattress. She felt like her head was going to explode. Her maid had a room with a bank of clear, sunlit windows, and a riot of color decorating the walls and linens, while she was forced to molder in a dark, airless room decorated in unrelieved blue. _It's not fair!_ she fumed. But then remembered some rubbish she'd heard about life not being fair, not ever.

Luckily, the images had not stopped there. Sookie recalled that there had been one last very revealing flash of memory. It was important to focus and keep her mind from indulging in an envious bout of emotional turmoil, which might cloud her recollections. The info about Elizabeth's previous life was interesting, but irrelevant to Sookie's never ending, bordering on obsessive, quest for ideas about how to escape.

In her mind, she heard Russell's intoxicatingly seductive voice. It was the same tone he used when trying to cajole her into doing something that she otherwise would not. "Elizabeth, my dove, come here." He was sitting in his office, and his dressing gown was open over a crisp, partially unbuttoned white dress shirt and grey pinstripe slacks. The next image had taken Sookie completely by surprise; although, in retrospect, she had no idea why it was at all astonishing.

She could see Elizabeth stretched out on the same couch where Russell had first interviewed her. Elizabeth's long jade green silk nightgown was pushed up around her waist, exposing her black lace underwear and sheer black thigh high stockings. Russell knelt on the floor, grasping her thigh between his hands as he gorged on the fount of blood from her femoral artery.

_Irish slut!_ Sookie thought, irrationally angry, even though she had no real reason to be surprised or angry. _After all_, she reasoned, _the more he drinks from her, the less he'll come after me_. However, deep down, she suspected that one really didn't have much to do with the other. "I'm just pissed that there was nothing useful in any of that," she said out loud. She rarely used her speaking voice anymore, and it tended to surprise her.

Her voice sounded too loud and given to echoes; coupled with the fact that there was not a thought in her head that she felt safe giving voice to. For all she knew, the room was bugged. But she dismissed that thought quickly; it did not seem like Russell's style. Too modern; besides he regarded her desire to escape as a natural response to her situation, and it did not seem to concern him beyond taking the necessary steps to prevent her from actually succeeding. What disturbed her more was her rising tendency towards paranoia. _I just have too much time to think_, she decided, getting up from the bed.

The next few hours passed uneventfully as Sookie finished reading To Kill A Mockingbird and then picked up Wuthering Heights. She was grateful to have the books to keep her mind busy during the long, dark hours. Sitting in her nightgown, she could almost pretend that she was spending a lazy day at home. _Some hot chocolate would be good_, she thought, but alas her prison lacked room service. She continued to read until she heard the latch turn on the door and Elizabeth walked in.

The maid had obviously felt the same about having a lazy day, since she had changed into a plain orange t-shirt, grey sweatpants, and tennis shoes. The rain had not let up all day. Sookie had listened as it pounded with unrelenting fury. The wind caused several limbs from the trees outside her room to crack and fall to the ground with a loud boom. After everything she had learned, Sookie didn't feel comfortable being stuck in the small room with the maid. She took it as a cue to set her book aside and retreat to the bathroom for a nice, hot bath.

Sookie sat in the bath, trying to relax, but she could not help but hear everything that was going on in her chamber. She listened as Elizabeth removed the old tray, changed her sheets, gathered up her clothes, dusted, and vacuumed. The bath had grown cold by the time she heard the telltale click of the latch, announcing that the maid was done. Sookie wrapped a towel around herself, set the bath to drain, and opened the door to her room. Thankfully, the room was clean, empty of other souls, and a laundry hamper had been installed next to the large armoire.

Sookie gathered up her dirty laundry from the bathroom floor and deposited it in her new, empty hamper. The clothes she had left strewn about the floor were gone. She assumed Elizabeth had taken them to be washed, or perhaps, she would never see them again. She hoped not, because she especially loved the silk nightgown. But it would have to be dry cleaned, so it would probably be several days before she saw it returned. Sookie hoped that she had not gotten ahead of herself by requesting a hamper, (in light of the fact that she still only had a few articles of clothing), but it did no good to second-guess herself.

She stepped over to the bed and saw a light blue cotton nightgown decorated with small stars, crescent moons, and thin lacy straps, as well as a matching robe and a new pair of underwear laid out for her. Thrilled that her moment's worry was unfounded, she dropped the towel to the floor and pulled on her new night ensemble. Her improved mood reminded her that she was hungry and she took her customary seat on the floor beside the ottoman to eat her dinner.

Dinner consisted of an unusual grilled cheese sandwich made with havarti, tomato, and basil, as well as a bowl of tomato soup and a small green salad with cucumbers and orange slices. No wine, but the cook had included a homemade chocolate chip cookie and glass of milk for dessert. As she ate, Sookie felt glad that the days of being naked and unable to enjoy her meals seemed to be behind her. Of course, she realized that those days could return if she lost favor again by, for instance, attempting to escape. But that was hardly enough reason for her to abandon hope that one day she would.

After dinner, Sookie pulled the comforter off her bed, and snuggled up before the cold hearth to read. Frustration had receded and, in its place, boredom and monotony stretched the hours before her like an endless desert, punctuated only by her brief visits outside, which were all that made filling the hours seem worthwhile. Finally, she decided that she had choked as much good as there was available to be had from the day. She stretched, brushed her teeth, and fell asleep listening to the soft sound of the rain falling from the dying storm.

Sookie was not at all surprised to be awakened shortly after midnight by the sound of the key turning in the lock and the door swinging open to admit the flamboyant Dr. Koze. Instead of rounding the bed, as was her habit, the doctor dropped her bag on the low table and switched on the light. Sookie could see that Kelly had followed her into the room and now stood motionless, one arm on the mantle, supporting his weight while he watched the proceedings. Dr. Koze rummaged through her bag while Sookie watched apprehensively, wondering if she would ever be free of the doctor's unwelcome presence.

Finally, after cursing under her breath in the strange foreign tongue Sookie still couldn't identify, she seemed to find what it was she was after. As she came around the bed, Sookie got the impression that she was in a hurry. She wondered where else the doctor might be going that night. No expense had been spared on the outfit she wore, which consisted of a fur-lined brown, copper and gold tweed jacket with a matching skirt and a red silk blouse unbuttoned, Sookie thought, by one too many. To complete the ensemble, she wore a pair of knee length, heeled calfskin boots, which Sookie knew she would have happily staked the doctor to have for herself, although she wisely did not give voice to the thought.

"You make trouble for me last time, _zuske_. Now you get trouble," the doctor said as she wet a cloth with the small bottle of ether she held. Alarmed, Sookie bolted upright, "Look, it's OK, I won't give you a fight. Just take what you want and go." Sookie extending her arm towards the doctor, as she supposed she should have done before. It didn't seem to make a difference. Feeling a wave of panic overwhelm her, she cast a pleading look in Kelly's direction, which he flatly ignored. "That time over. You make bed, now lie in it," the doctor said as she raised the cloth to Sookie's face.

"No!" Sookie cried, taking a deep breath and holding it. Not for one second did she trust what might happen if she lost consciousness. "You no hold breath," Dr. Koze ordered. She tore Sookie's hand away from her face with one hand and shoved the cloth against her nose with the other.

Weakly, Sookie tried to choke out another "no," but it came out as a stifled gurgle. That was the last thing she remembered, other than a sharp stab of dread, wondering whether she would wake up again and what sort of shape she might find herself in if she did.

Luckily, the doctor knew what she was doing. Sookie awoke in the late morning with a headache to beat the band and a bandage over her vein on her arm. Groggily, every movement a painful struggle, she switched on her bedside lamp and checked herself all over. She was relieved to discover that she was still in one piece, all except for the headache that threatened to gnaw through her skull.

Her breakfast had been delivered while she slept. Bacon, scrambled eggs, toast, and another strong cup of coffee. She was especially grateful for the coffee, hoping that it would dispel some of the pounding in her head. When she finished eating, she slipped into the pretty yellow sundress and underwear that she found folded on the table in front of the fireplace. She worried that she had missed her chance at going outside. The worry eroded the enjoyment she might have otherwise had from her meal and new clothes.

She brushed her teeth and ran her fingers through her hair before knocking on the door. The key turned and Kelly peered in, his blue eyes dazzling, but guarded. "Yes?" he inquired. "I want to go outside. Have I missed my chance?" she asked, her voice carrying a note of uncertainty. "No, you can still go out," he answered. "Let me fetch Elizabeth." He began to shut the door when Sookie interjected, "Would you please have her bring me some Advil too?" He rolled his eyes, but nodded. "Anything else I can do for you?" he asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "No, but I'll be sure to let you know," she replied, saucily. Unceremoniously, he shut the door in her face and she heard the key turn in the lock.

A few minutes passed, but it felt like forever to Sookie as she sat perched on the edge of the bed, waiting. Her head hurt and she felt weak from being drained, which made her wonder if the doctor had taken advantage of her being unconscious to steal more blood than usual. _I guess I'll never know_, she thought, sighing heavily and wondering if she would ever experience a good day again.

Soon enough, the door opened and Elizabeth bustled in. She looked very pretty; her porcelain complexion was without flaw, and her outfit emphasized her thin, but curvy figure. Sookie found herself enviously eyeing the blush pink tank top, the cute, studded jean skirt that showed off her shapely legs, leather Ecco sandals, and a thin gold chain with a compass pendant, not so different from the one Sookie wore around her neck.

In her hands, she carried a glass of water and two Advil, which Sookie downed in one gulp. "I'm ready now," she announced to Kelly who stood outside the open door. They made their way down the corridor the same as for the past couple days. But this time, when they reached the staircase, sunlight poured in through the windows to light the foyer. Sookie held her breath in anticipation of feeling the sun on her skin again.

When they walked out on the broad porch, the humidity from the previous day's rain was so intense that Sookie felt like she had just walked into a sauna. Nevertheless, being a Southern girl, she adjusted quickly and delighted in the feeling of being engulfed in the bright sun's warming rays. It felt like all the cold, the bleak grayness, were being burned out of her bones.

It was hard to remember when she had felt so warm, so unable to brood over the chill seeping into the cracks in her soul, ready to shatter her from within. She smiled, the big winning grin that used to make her money at the bar, draw men to her like flies, especially the supernatural ones who were more prone to stick around. _That didn't turn out so well_, she thought, grimacing. Luckily, with her back to the mansion, she could almost forget it was there, almost forget how she had gotten mixed up with vampires in the first place. With Elizabeth at her side, she could pretend she was just touring a plantation, maybe somewhere in Georgia. It was just a stop on a road trip, a break from school, she told herself, building her fantasy with practiced ease and well-worn tools.

The verdant greenery represented every shade of green that must exist, she mused, trying to remember all the names she knew: jade, clover, midori (a favorite drink in better days), emerald, lime, celadon. Someone at the bar had once told her, after she mentioned that her favorite color was green, that green was the one color that the human eye could rest on without getting tired. It was nice to think of it that way, even if it was probably bullshit. He had been trying to pick her up at the time. The guy was from out of town and not privy to her reputation for being crazy.

Elizabeth pulled a cigarette from her pack and lit it. Sookie tried to ignore the pungent smell of the smoke and just focus on how the wet, soggy earth squished between her toes. Every once in a while, she caught a glimpse of the wolves patrolling the grounds, moving in and among the trees like shadows. She strained her eyes, hoping to see a yellow timber wolf like Alcide, but the few shapes she could distinguish were flat gray.

Thinking of Alcide made her ache inside all over. Sookie missed him in ways she hadn't imagined. She longed to see a familiar looking wolf, see him run towards her, and change into the man that she loved. Then, together they would find their way to safety, and start a new life. But the daydream faded, and she was again just walking, trying to avoid the smell of smoke, while keeping her back to the mansion for as long as possible.

Elizabeth stooped to pick a sodden dandelion, and held the limp stem next to her cigarette, trying to straighten the delicate petals with her deft fingers. She was lost in concentration on her little project, the harp music spinning a melancholy web, and they continued walking. A low stream came into view, the water glistening around large rocks in the afternoon light. As Sookie watched the water, she felt the dreaded tap on her shoulder, telling her it was time to head back.

The mansion filled her wide eyes, resplendent in its antebellum glory. Her slow, but happy pace changed to a trudge; every footfall was an effort. The sun was hurting her eyes, and she found herself looking enviably at Elizabeth's Prada shades. She had made a rule to keep her requests to necessities, but she thought she might soon chance it and ask for a pair of sunglasses. Burning eyes, on top of everything else, just seemed like an unreasonable burden to have to endure. She tried not to think about it, tried to limit her focus to Kelly's back a few paces ahead.

Anger grew within her as each step brought her closer to the mansion. She ruminated, wondering which room Russell rested in. Her initial thought was that he would choose either the cupola crowning the mansion or the deep, broad basement level, since those were probably the most secure locations. But when she thought about the immense room that was the stage for the lusty v-dreams that regularly plagued her sleep, she didn't think either location would be likely. Oh, how she wished she knew. She would find him; let him see the power of her hatred for him before she laid him forever to rest. She smiled, picturing the moment of triumph in her mind, and her hands itched to hold a stake to his heart.

As Sookie brooded on her imagined revenge, she stumbled over a loose rock, and fell to her hands and knees. Her pretty yellow dress was stained with mud and had torn under the weight of her knees as she fell. Elizabeth stooped down to grasp Sookie's scraped and dirty hands in her own. As Elizabeth helped pull her to her feet, Sookie was suddenly hit with more errant mental images that slipped through the curtain of haze and music that held the maid's mind hostage.

Kelly strode over as Sookie attempted to brush the mud from her dress. "Are you alright?" he asked, sounding genuinely concerned. _Of course he is_, Sookie thought, _who knows what Russell would do to him if I was hurt_. Sookie was far too world weary to believe that his concern was for her and not himself. "I'm fine," she replied, giving up on trying to salvage the dress. _Damn_, she thought, _why does everything I like end up getting ruined?_

They continued towards the house and Sookie was surprised by how much ground they had covered. It hadn't seemed so far when they had been going the other direction. She mulled over the new images that had come to her. There was not nearly so much this time. Mixed in with the memories that Sookie had seen before was a glimpse of Elizabeth cooking in a fine, old-fashioned kitchen.

The cupboards were paneled in glass behind which were stored delicate china plates, bowls, and saucers. Elizabeth was wearing a checked apron with her long, auburn hair pulled into a loose ponytail as she chopped fruit and turned to stir the contents of a copper saucepan on the gas range. Copper pots were suspended from a hanging rack and the counters were full of fresh fruit, cut flowers, and the overflow of dirty dishes that would not fit in the large porcelain sink.

Sookie also saw Elizabeth sitting in the back of a chauffeured black Cadillac as it drove through the tree-lined streets of what must be downtown Jackson. There were bags and packages strewn all over the backseat with labels like Nordstrom, Chanel, White House Black Market, Prada, Ralph Lauren, and Manolo Blahnik. It became clear to Sookie how it was that her life functioned on a daily basis. Elizabeth was the answer to the riddle. She was the one who Russell had handpicked to cook, clean, and shop for her, as well as give her a small measure of company.

_No wonder it is so important to Russell to keep her glamoured_, Sookie thought, _she is the key to my life here_. As they approached the house, Kelly veered off to circumvent the mansion. Sookie was happy to add a few minutes to the walk, besides having the opportunity to see the whole house.

_Russell must have had it in mind all along_, Sookie realized. Being buried alive had only delayed the wheels of fate he had already put in motion. She had never been much of a planner and she was simply amazed at the time, energy, and foresight he had employed to get her exactly where he wanted her. It angered her in a way, but she also felt like a burden had been lifted. There was no escaping this destiny, and kicking herself for mistakes she had made along the way was pointless.

Even if she managed to stake Russell and escape, her life was not likely to improve. Without Bill, Erik, or Russell to protect her, she would be at the mercy of whatever other supernaturals she might encounter, and she shivered at the prospect. Any new life she started would have to be lived in total secrecy, cut off from the past, and she would spend the rest of her days hiding from vampires among strangers.

Still, she had trouble accepting that this really was her life. Looking at Elizabeth, her eyes hidden behind her sunglasses, her porcelain skin luminous in the sunlight, Sookie realized that the thing that bothered her most about Elizabeth was that she was content in her life. _Just another damn fang banger_, Sookie thought uncharitably.

Elizabeth had no burning desire to rejoin society or to escape. The calm acceptance she possessed filled her with a sublime radiance that could not be feigned or hidden. _I don't know that I'll ever get there_, Sookie thought. She examined the large rounded windows and strong bricks of the octagonal structure, and began to think of the messages she had received from her guards, Russell, the doctor.

They had all said that she must accept her new life and, although she had never done more than half-listen to them, she was beginning to understand that her happiness or misery was her responsibility. As they rounded the back of the great house, Sookie noticed a particularly sunny, open patch of the yard. _It's a shame that nobody's planted a garden there_, she thought, remembering the joy her grandmother had taken in her garden back in Bon Temps.

In every way, it seemed a perfect spot for rows of well-tended vegetables and flowers. _I could plant a perimeter of marigolds to protect the garden_, she thought, getting ahead of herself. She would have to secure a lot more time outside before that could happen, but she could almost feature the bright yellow and orange petals attracting ladybugs and butterflies. Following the line of thought as they moved past her imagined garden spot, she envisioned rows of flowers, tulips, roses, and daffodils, up near the house to help make it seem less stark and forbidding.

For a moment, she felt happy at the thought of a project that would keep her hands and mind busy; planting bulbs, her hands brown and dirty, or guiding creepers full of flowers into beautiful arrays to decorate the brick outer walls. As they came around the front of the house, Sookie could picture a rose trellis placed before the entrance. Smiling, she remembered how her grandmother had told her that only good could pass through a rose trellis.

_But Russell doesn't need to know anything about that_, she thought. A sly smile crossed her lips as she began thinking of how she might cajole more time outside and the necessary gardening supplies from him. Sookie passed through the front door full of plans for how she would pass the time until she eventually escaped. As much as she might envy Elizabeth her contentment, she knew she was not Elizabeth, and she would never give up her hope for freedom. _It isn't perfect_, Sookie thought, _but maybe I can find some happiness here_. Gran always said that you have to take the good with the bad. But then her grandmother had not been a telepath, and the sole obsession of the most ancient and powerful vampire of them all.

THE END

**P**.**S. In order to publish this story within the boundaries of what allows, I had to make some editing changes. If you are interested to read the unedited version, which is mostly the same except for some minor changes in the story and the fact that the lemony scenes contain quite a bit more citrus pow! then just private message me and I will be happy to provide you with the link to the unrated version. Thanks for reading!**


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